


Wrapped

by Inebri8ed



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: A lot of mutual pining, Also everyone is the same age bc im lazy, Basically a best friends/ fake dating AU rolled into one, But Jaehyuns boss is super handsy in the work place and he is uncomfy with it!!, F/M, I legit SUCK at summaries, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Its my very first time writing a fic plz be nice lmao, It’s not super intense, Joy/Irene, So be wary of that, They go to a ski resort, and I think Lucas/Jungwoo if I can fit it, and after that therye all like 21-23, bi!Joy, bi!lucas, demi!Irene, everyone else is implied but not really necessarry to the story, gay!Jungwoo, i forgot that haechan and johnny are cousins, if not theyre all just implied, ill see, ill update it later if that changes, just know that in my headcanon they do happen, just maybe not during the time frame of the story, literally the only cannon ships are gonna be Jaehyun/reader, please read my fic lmao, slight angst bc of Jaehyun and reader’s obliviousness, super cliche, thats mentioned like once but yea, their friends been knew, theyre all college freshman in ch 1, theyre just in denial, umm ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 50,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16096121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inebri8ed/pseuds/Inebri8ed
Summary: When (y/n) became a sixth of the tightest and most supportive friend group she could’ve asked for freshman year of college, she never would have thought that five years later she would be wrapped in her best friends arms, holding a staring contest with an extremely irritated...and much older, woman who was trying her hardest to get into his pants. She might have been getting in over her head with this one, but hey, what are friends for?Basically JaehyunxReader are the two best friends anyone could have, but all that changes when Jaehyun asks Reader to help him deter his clingy older boss’s affections by pretending to be his gf. Pining ensues. Angst ensues. Stupidity and denial ensues. The usual.





	1. The one when they all meet

You met most of your current friend group during freshman year orientation. Four of you were placed in the same orientation group because you were entering college under the same major....that being that you were all undecided. It was a stressful time of you trying to figure out what you wanted to study knowing that it would have to eventually become your career, all the while looking for as many part time jobs near your campus as you could find. You knew you were only at this school right now because of your academic scholarships and because of your mother’s incredible hard work. She had always saved as much as she could for you and all of your siblings, but being a single mother of four was hard. You were determined to try to work and save as much as possible to take some of the load off of her shoulders, it was the least you could do. 

You were drawn to Lucas immediately because he was just so loud. He was a giant boy with an even bigger smile and the looks of a model, but his personality didn’t seem negatively influenced by that at all. You had never met anyone who seemed so enthused and truly happy to be doing ice-breaker games. 

“I’ve got mail for anyone who can speak more than one language!” He shouted and cackled as a few new students begrudgingly left their places safe in the circle to find a new place, leaving Lucas now safe on the sidelines while someone else had to subject themselves to the social awkwardness of standing in the center of a group of potential classmates and divulging personal information, all the while he was still snickering to himself. 

For some reason he took a liking to you when you were paired off in an awkward one on one introduction game and you both overheard the girl in the pair over say she was watching her weight. Lucas looked at you flippantly, “watching her weight? What about the wait for her watch?”

Now this undoubtedly threw you off guard but for some reason, you looked him dead in the eyes and answered, “You can’t wait for a watch, you don’t have the time.”

Three beats of silence passed between you and then you both burst into hysterical laughter, Lucas being completely taken aback by your ability to match his nonsensical rapport. That was all it took and he ended up sticking to your side for the rest of the weekend long orientation. It wasn’t long after meeting Lucas that you met Joy and Donghyuck. They were both those type of people that exude confidence and intimidation while being contrarily incredibly kind. 

Joy initially came up to you when you accidentally spaced out while staring right at her face, only subconsciously noticing the extremely beautiful girl with a full bright smile and shoulder length black hair. She had no hesitation in coming over to you and coldly stating, “I know I’m strikingly beautiful, but I don’t appreciate the blatant staring,” with a pointed gaze.

“I- oh- uhh- I’m-“ you floundered for any excuse you could think of.

She let you stutter for a good ten seconds before her demeanor completely changed and she spoke again while laughing, “I’m just kidding, I caught you obviously spacing and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to come over and start a conversation, I’m Joy,” she smiled.

“I’m (y/n), sorry by the way I have a really bad habit of spacing out in the worst ways,” you replied, only a little embarrassment lingering. And that conversation, although being the first time the two of you met, was enough for you both to decide to become roommates in the upcoming year.

Donghyuck undoubtedly was on the more intimidating side. He exuded so much confidence that you honestly never thought he would be the one to claim being nervous to approach Joy, Lucas and yourself. All it took to fully accept and befriend him was him basically interrupting your conversation one day. He swooped in claiming, “You three seem like the most interesting people here and I have a very high standard for most if not all of my friends if we’re going to stunt on the entire freshman class.”

You had to admit, all three of you were shocked into silence. Simply staring at the golden skinned boy with vibrantly dyed red hair and an undoubtedly influential air about him. A silence that only broke when Donghyuck himself let his smirk slip into a full blown grin and almost bashfully stated, “Oh my god that was so cringey please don’t think I’m like that you guys seem really cool and I thought I needed to make a strong impression.”

“Well, you certainly did. Although I have to say, I noticed you before and I’m glad to see you’re not actually as scary as you look,” Lucas amusedly responded. This left the red head sputtering because Donghyuck, for some reason, did not see himself as intimidating at all.

Despite meeting three of your closest friends during orientation, you can honestly say your current best friend and you did not make an immediate connection upon meeting like the others. Jaehyun was sort of officially adopted into your friend group on the first weekend of the semester. You had finally reunited with your friends from orientation on move-in day, and upon Donghyuck’s request, went to meet his cousin Johnny. He was quick-witted, but in a dad joke type of way, and bonding with him was easy once you realized he didn’t take anything too seriously, including himself. Johnny, despite being a freshman like the rest of you, looked old enough to be a dad, or at the very least a cool young uncle, with his above average height, dark neatly styled hair and sharp features. Therefore, he became your source of acquiring alcohol for the rest of you until you were of age. And as most people in college will attest to, alcohol is very good grounds for friendship in the beginning of a new school year. 

Jaehyun was interesting. With his jet black hair that was always perfectly styled and his mature fashion sense, he seemed very mature and intimidating at first. That image very quickly disappeared and ushered in a harder issue to navigate. There wasn’t a disliking, or even a discomfort around him. It just was difficult for you to get him talking. He wasn’t shy and neither were you in a group setting so you still easily got to know him, but for some reason whenever you tried to interact just the two you, the conversation fell flat. It felt like you needed some sort of topic or bonding experience to lay down a metaphorical log that would help the two of you hop over this fence of uncertainty. 

The whole first week of classes your group of six musketeers would do everything together. You lived in the same dorm so late nights in either you and Joy’s, or Jaehyun and Johnny’s room became almost a nightly activity, grabbing every meal together was a must, and some of you even had the same classes that you would inevitably walk to together. You were bonding, and bonding extremely fast, even by desperate college freshman standards.

It’s natural for not only the freshmen, but the entire campus to go wild on the first weekend of the semester. There were parties everywhere. House parties, dorm parties, and for upper class men, bar hopping in the city outside of the campus walls. You and Joy had made sure to dress to the nines, hoping to be seen as older and not treated as naive freshmen. However, that quickly backfired because of your drinking habits. You all pre-gamed in your room, playing drinking games, doing shots, and dancing, and despite the obscene amount of alcohol you had already consumed, you all decided to bring a heavily mixed drink with you as you roamed your campus looking for parties to go to. 

Above all else, the one thing you wanted to do was go to a house party. They are the most widespread reference of college anyone in the country who’s tuned in to pop culture will ever get and it seemed like so much fun to you. You wanted to dance and drink and be with all other people who you know don’t really care about what you’re doing. It seemed like such a perfect way to share an experience with people while also letting yourself get lost in the booming bass and letting yourself go in a way you can only do in large crowds. The six of you rolled up to a party at a house deemed the “baseball house” by basically the entire campus and could feel the vibrations already through the pavement. You and Joy excitedly pushed Johnny out of your way as you basically ran up the porch steps to the front door.

With no one manning the door, it was fairly easy to push your way into the completely over stuffed hallway and make your way to the kitchen, which was straight through to the back of the house. You had the common sense to never drink a pre-mixed drink at a house party so you just stuck to your extremely strong mix of cheap vodka, cranberry, and orange juice, courtesy of your lovely roommate. You were already dancing and looked around at your friends who you had grown to love so quickly. You passively observed how beautiful they all were. From an objective standpoint they were all very attractive, clearly, but their personalities were so lovely and genuine your heart swelled and you truly couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I love you guys,” you practically whined.

Donghyuck laughed, “Have you really had that much to drink (y/n)?”

Indignantly you began to protest, “no........well yes but it’s still true. The alcohol is just making me say it out loud where I would normally say it in my brain.”

“We love you too, okay? Now can we please get to the living room already? Every second I’m not on the dance floor is a disservice to this party” Lucas exclaimed in return as everyone laughed and followed his lead. Seeing as people practically parted like the Red Sea when they saw the 6 ft smiling giant coming their way, it wasn’t particularly hard to make it to the middle of the floor. 

You started out dancing in a tight circle, watching as your friends laughed and sang along to the lyrics of the most popular songs on the radio that you somehow had never heard before. But, it wasn’t long until the crowd closed in and soon enough you were surrounded by people you didn’t know and your vision was becoming harder and harder to keep upright as your five-some odd shots began to take effect in your bloodstream. You didn’t mind the feeling by itself but you were starting to feel worried when you realized someone had invited themselves to press up against your back and start grinding into your backside without permission, not to mention they were extremely off beat which only added to your drunken reasons to be completely angered by the unfortunate turn of events. 

You tried to inconspicuously shimmy away and act like you were so drunk you didn’t even notice them, but the person had an alarmingly and uncomfortably secure grip around your torso. It felt like a seatbelt was strapped across your chest and you couldn’t unbuckle it. This irritation only grew when they started making ministrations on your neck and jaw from their position, and you knew it was way too loud for them to hear you practically yelling at them to get off. It was then that you, by the grace of the universe, made eye contact with Jaehyun through a miraculous parting in the crowd. He saw the hopelessness and pure annoyance in your eyes and wasted no time to quickly push through and not so politely inform the guy who had been grabbing you that you were clearly not interested. It took an annoying amount of time for him to be “convinced” as it seemed, but eventually he left. You looked at Jaehyun and finally let out a heavy sigh as you let your forehead fall onto his chest. Seeing that your night was not completely ruined and you were only slightly annoyed still, he simply chuckled and rubbed your back seeming to say, ‘I know, men suck.’ Which you wholeheartedly agreed with. 

From then on, you made the decision to make sure you were always next to one of your friends from the rest of the night. It was much easier to avoid whatever that situation was again when someone was there to step in before the next person could even come up behind you. Your new system worked for everyone and you were all seeming to have a much better time than before, when you noticed that your pre-made mixed drink of choice had run out. It was only midnight at this point and by the looks of it, you were definitely not feeling like a lightweight drinker. You looked around, spotted Johnny and pulled him with you to the kitchen to try and concoct some drink that was strong enough to last you but also not terrible tasting. He himself needed a refill anyways and obliged to follow you. 

“What should I drink, I’m starting to lose my buzz, but I don’t want to go home this early..” you mused as your eyes scanned the counter of liquor bottles and juices.

Johnny hummed and then his lips spread in a mischievous smirk, “Well.....I heard tequila is the only alcohol that’s not a depressant. I would go for that if you wanna keep your energy up.”

You drank in highschool, but always avoided tequila because of the reputation it had, but in your partially inebriated state you thought; Fuck it. I’m in college. I’m gonna drink tequila if I want to.

“You mix me something then, I have no idea what goes with tequila. But make it strong,” you told your new friend. 

Johnny mixed you and him both a drink with tequila and so many other types of juices in it that you probably could not replicate it if you tried. After one taste you knew this was going to be either the best or worst decision of your night. It tasted like it was just juice, but you know you had seen at least half of the cup filled with the golden liquor before anything else went into it.

You drank and danced and tried to pace yourself, but the drink Johnny made was too good to keep away from your lips for long. You had finished the whole cup in only forty-five minutes, which to you seemed like hours. It only took each of you having that second mixed drink to forget your inhibitions and continue to dance with each other, only a little more vulgar in nature now. Queue the grinding and raunchy hip movements and dance moves that showed off your sex appeal. It was all in good fun and you were honestly having a great time at this point. You remember staring right into Jaehyun’s face as you both were laughing at Donghyuck jersey turnpiking on Joy to Drop It Like It’s Hot by Snoop Dogg.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next thing you remember is waking up the next morning. Your hair was in the absolute worst bun you had ever seen, it would probably need to be cut out of your hair. Your makeup was haphazardly wiped off. Your clothes from the night before were still on, and most notably, you had a large glass of water and a trash barrel next to your bed. Your reached for your phone, which was luckily charging next to your bed, and saw that the time read 12:30 pm. Your were not one to sleep in. You rarely could force yourself during summer vacation to stay in bed past 10:30, and that was after waking up naturally at 8:30 even after staying up past 1 just to make yourself tired enough that you might potentially sleep in, but alas it never happened. 

This, needless to say, was an entirely new experience for you. You sat up quickly, way too quickly for your poor head, and chugged almost the entire glass of water in one sitting. Feeling slightly more alive, you looked over to see if Joy was also still sleeping half the day away. Your saw her there, flat on her back with every limb spread wide, and her mouth spread even wider. She was snoring as loud as a pick-up truck with no muffler and her whole image was no better than what you saw in yourself. At least you weren’t alone. You decided to shower before anything else and brush the disgusting stale taste out of your mouth. Luckily you took a quick shower and were out before 12:45 in time to wake Joy up and convince her to get in the shower and get dressed before your other four friends, who had obviously just woken up as well, showed up to your dorm room ready to go get a late ‘cure your collective hangovers’ brunch.

“Johnny, you can’t say shit! At one point you were literally acting like a shot girl and collecting a dollar from people to pour alcohol that wasn’t yours into people’s mouths!”

“Yeah maybe so! BUT I in no way forced the DJ to play Crank That Soulja Boy FIVE times in a row and have people I didn’t know do the dance on top of the speakers did I!?”

You simply sipped your coffee amused and listened to Johnny and Hyuck go back and forth trying to decide who had the most embarrassing moment of the night. It was extremely entertaining for you until-

“No one can compare though,” Jaehyun cut in, “to (y/n) literally kissing each one of us on the mouth and listing off her favorite qualities of ours.”

Everyone seemed to remember this and simply laughed again but your face fell. This was your first time hearing about this. You had heard about the possibility of blacking out, but never expected it to happen to you. Especially on your first night out on campus.

You internally cursed tequila’s name and externally cringed as hard as you could, “Oh my god I did not do that! I’m so sorry I really don’t even remember that happening,” you tried to plead your case.

Jaehyun only continued his retelling, “Don’t worry, you were very respectful. You made sure to ask each of us at least five times if you had our consent. You were wicked serious about it.”

“Hey, at least I have decency even while drunk,” you conceded as your friend only continued to try and further embarrass you.

“Hey, speaking of decency, which one of you brought me and (y/n) home? I know our two drunk asses didn’t make it back alone,” Joy piped in. You had also been curious yourself, seeing as you and your roommate seemed way too far gone to manage all that on your own.

“Oh that was me. You two were a pain in my ass too,” Jaehyun once again spoke up. “You made me buy you chicken wings only to throw up and pass out before they even got delivered.” 

“Man that explains why my bun was so shitty and my makeup was still on. Damn, Jaehyun you gotta learn to take care of us better than that if this tequila thing is gonna be a trend,” you criticized in a serious manner. All the while smiling to show how thankful you actually were.

Joy kicked in, “Yeah you didn’t even take my shoes off and you left me on my back! I could have died from chocking on my own vomit!” She all but yelled.

And that was it. That was that one log that made jumping the fence into true friendship possible between you and Jaehyun. From then on there never seemed to be a dull moment between the two of you. When you hung out alone it was always full of serious and thought provoking conversations and when you hung out in groups it was always the two of you against the rest. You simply made the best team, and could handle any situation knowing the other had your back.

______________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll try to post like 2-3 times a week! I have a lot of this written ahead of time so it should be updated regularly :)))))
> 
> Also yes I got that conversation with Lucas from that Tumblr post abot John Mulaney’s skit about how “the things insane people say mean nothing to them but everything to me” and I stand by it...also I left a comment below about what game they were playing at orientation if you’re curious...
> 
> Please leave me comments about what you think! It’s my first time writing a fic so I appreciate any feedback :))


	2. The one when (y/n) is the best friend ever and they’re maybe a little too good at this?

This wouldn’t be the first time your best friend had dragged you into a stupid scheme despite you definitely knowing better. In fact, it wouldn’t even be the first time in the last six months. Since freshman year, you had been convinced of things like; streaking through the sprinklers on your campus’ quad at 4 am, breaking into the admissions building to have a sleepover during a snowstorm only to be chased out early the next morning when the school inevitably ended up not closing, and most irresponsibly blowing most of your savings on a spring break trip to Thailand you knew you couldn’t afford. It had taken you almost half a year of working overtime to save up the money you had blown. Although you act like you hate your friends for always somehow convincing you to completely ignore your very good sense of right and wrong, you can confidently say you have some of the best college memories that always seem to make other people look back at you and your friends in envy. 

It was now a little over a year out of college, and much like you’d hoped, you and all five of your freshman year best friends were still the tightest knit group you knew. After graduation, Joy, Jaehyun and yourself had gotten an apartment together in the city, while Hyuck, Lucas and Johnny lived together not too far from yours. The six of you honestly leased these apartments because they were close to each other on the subway line, conveniently close enough to also walk if necessary. Once you found these places, you all searched day and night for any job in the area and merely split up based on which apartment was closer to which person’s job. 

You had finally decided what to study in school by the second semester of your freshman year, not without tons of advice and guidance from Jaehyun. Now, you worked as a Travel Support Specialist at an educational travel agency. You loved your job because it gave you the opportunity to inspire people to experience the world and open bridges between different cultures. It was only a perk that Joy and Jaehyun worked close by; Joy as an ESL teacher at a local korean elementary school, and Jaehyun as an editor at a medium sized publishing company. It was like a dream come true that you could all live together and still work close enough to grab lunch together every day. 

Hyuck now spent his days as a vocal and dance instructor at a performing arts school, and he was honestly amazing at it, constantly being given teaching awards and seeing his students move on to become famous and successful. Lucas, despite actually studying mechanical engineering, now is an IT Technician at a Forbes 500 company, and sometimes still likes to nerd out over work despite nobody ever understanding. Johnny was the most surprising, he went to school and got a degree in Biology only to somehow turn it around and become a music producer. He had a natural talent for it, and definitely had the confidence and personality to work his way into the industry and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere now. The six of you, despite being on completely different tracks in life now, never lost your youthful spirit that came with being college freshman. You still basically had sleepovers most every weekend, and you still all got too drunk to remember anything the next morning, and most importantly, you still all dragged each other into ridiculous schemes that only the best of friends would ever agree to help with.

And that is where you were now. Sitting at home in your living room with your best friend. Both of you eating out of the same Chinese food container with some awful Netflix movie playing in the background. Him feeding you more and more reasons as to why this plan will work, and why you are the only one who can help him. 

“-and I know it seems completely stupid but I really have thought about it so much and I think we could pull it off with minimal effort pleeeaaasssssseeee (y/n).” Jaehyun whined the final words of his five minute rant.

You were still looking at him calculatingly, “so...let me get this straight. You really think me bringing you lunch every once in a while and being your date to company events will stop your boss from making passes on you?” You questioned. 

“Yeah I really do,” he answered.

“........sure.” It really didn’t take that much convincing, it seemed easy enough.

“I hear what your sayi- wait you’ll do it!?” Jaehyun all but yelled.

You amusedly regarded your best friend of five years, “Why not, we already go to lunch together everyday, whats the difference if I come up to your office instead of meeting outside? Also I never have excuses to dress up it could be fun, especially knowing someone will be staring at me suuuper enviously.”

“Exactly! I know how much you love it when people who don’t mean anything to you care so much about you that it ruins their day, and honestly this lady will definitely try to make you hate her, which I’d like to see,” He responded, ecstatic that you had agreed to his idea so quickly after he spent pretty much a whole week agonizing over how he was going to ask you.

“Ha, I can’t wait to not acknowledge her.” You triumphantly stated, “Why now though? You’ve been complaining about ‘no boundaries Nancy’ literally since you started working there.”

“I know, it’s usually more subtle, but lately she’s just actually been like, touching me and hinting at us spending alone time outside of work, and I’m scared to go into the holiday office events season by myself. I just need my partner in crime next to me and I’ll feel better,” Jaehyun responded, making you smile with fondness knowing that he relied on you and much as you did on him. 

“Then yes, I will happily go to your company holiday parties as your ‘girlfriend’ in order to protect your honor,” you said, already thinking about what it is you would even do differently to seem like his ‘girlfriend’ and not just his ‘friend.’

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, you found yourself consciously dressing nicer than you had in months to go to work. After all, you had a girlfriend to be. You wanted this lady who had been making your best friend so uncomfortable to choke on her dentures when she saw what a beautiful, kind, and appropriately aged girlfriend her object of desire had. You had on a form fitting but modest pencil skirt with a warm, slightly oversized autumn sweater over it, with sheer tights and a black pointed toe boot, topped off with your nicest down feather jacket and a scarf that fittingly, Jaehyun had bought you for your birthday the previous year. You made sure to do your makeup in a very classic style that you knew Jaehyun liked based on the girls he dated throughout your time in college, and left your hair down. You thought you looked perfect, but Jaehyun had already left for work by the time you went to get his opinion.

Your day flew by, constantly answering and making phone calls, while researching programs and countries that best suit your client’s interests. Before you knew it, you were getting frantic texts from Jaehyun

Jae baby uwu:  
12:15 pm  
(Y/n)  
Are u coming soon  
The vulture has spotted her prey  
The vulture being nancy  
The prey being me  
Omg shes circling plz hurry  
Oop im trapped hurry and come be my gf  
and plz pray for me

 

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
12:45 pm  
Omg omw rn im so sorry  
I’ll be there in .2 milliseconds

You immediately grabbed your jacket and scarf and briskly walked the short walk down the street to his office building that you had gone to so many times, but never had the need to really go in. You went up the elevator to the eleventh floor where you knew Jaehyun’s office is located. The elevator ride gave you time to fix anything array with your ensemble and more importantly strategize how you were going to play this.

You walked off the elevator and came to face a very kind looking man, who looked around your age. He had a striking face and the sweetest smile already on display before you said anything. He kindly asked, “How can I help you today miss?”

And your mind drew a blank before you came back to your consciousness with a stutter, “oh- uh yes I’m here to meet..” you hesitated, should you keep this ruse up for the entire office? Probably right? Yes, you made the split second decision, “my boyfriend for lunch, Jaehyun?”

The young man’s eyebrows raised in the slightest but other than that nothing in his expression changed, “yes, you can go right in, his office is straight down here to the back.” 

You thanked him and continued further into the office, taking in the sight of countless bookshelves and lounging areas, all decorated in earthy, warm hues. This seemed like the kind of office you would be so comfortable in you would end up staying at work late into the night by accident. As you almost got lost in the decor, you heard the clearly recognizable sound of Jaehyun’s awkward laugh. You’d heard it plenty of times, from when a professor would make a terrible joke while he was presenting in class and he couldn’t outwardly snarl at the interruption, or when your landlord tried to make ‘bro-talk,’ with him about how lucky he was to live with “these two beautiful broads,” with you and Joy clearly within ears reach. It was a sound you’d heard many times, and this time you knew it meant that Jaehyun’s handsy boss had already swooped down and trapped her prey.

Steeling yourself one last time, you put on your most innocently expectant face you could muster and poked your head through the door. What you saw was displeasing to you, not as Jaehyun’s fake girlfriend, not even as his best friend, but just as a person. Nancy, who was clearly living up to her ‘no boundaries’ nickname, was actively touching Jaehyun’s chest and stomach spewing some nonsense about having something on his shirt that ‘just isn’t coming off, darn it.’ Your friend clearly looked uncomfortable and was clearly saying everything short of “get your pervy hands off me,” trying to be polite. You couldn’t take it anymore and loudly cleared your throat.

At that Jaehyun’s eyes immediately flooded with relief, while Nancy on the other hand looked ready to commit murder on whoever had interrupted. It was clear that she wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of her inappropriate actions enough to even close the door. 

Seeing that you weren’t a familiar face from around the office, she seemed even more perturbed, practically hissing, “Can I help you with something?”

Despite being even more irritated that she had the audacity to speak over Jaehyun in his own office, you didn’t let your face show any hint of mistrust of anger that one might expect from a jealous girlfriend. No, you wanted to give off the image of complete self-assurance and complete trust in the status of your relationship. Which is why when you answered you barely even acknowledged Nancy.

“No, thank you though. You ready to go, my love?” You quickly redirected the attention to Jaehyun, who only needed a second to adjust before he picked up on the energy you were giving off.

“Yeah, sure darling, give me one minute to get my coat,” he responded cooly. You can’t deny how fuzzy it made you feel to be called darling. It had always been one of your favorite pet names and it felt so much more satisfying than babe or baby to you. That must have come up at some point in your countless conversations with the other which is why he decided to call you that now. That thought made you smile.

Nancy, who obviously wasn’t just handsy but also very nosey, nasals out, “oh Hyunnie, who is this?” While clearly sizing you up.

You had to physically restrain yourself from cringing in her face as she attempted to hold you in a challenging staring contest. “My name is (y/n), It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Jaehyun’s girlfriend,” you stated with a placating smile.

“Girlfriend? Really? You must have only recently started dating, I haven’t seen you around before,” Nancy spat out, clearly not worried about the strength of such a new relationship against her ‘charms.’

You noticed Jaehyun sort of floundering, just now thinking that there should be a reason why you would have never come around the office until now if you two were dating. Luckily you were quick on your feet and saved him from his internal struggle.

“Ah yes, I’ve actually been working from overseas for the past five months. Unfortunately we only got a month together in person before I had to leave, but I’m back just in time to celebrate our six month anniversary this month,” you made sure to send nothing but fond looks Jaehyun’s way if for nothing else than to not have to look at Nancy’s scowling face. 

You made sure to add, “But we’ve known each other for years before we started dating, he’s been my best friend since college.” Because it would just be too hard to pretend you didn’t have those five years of history between you for the sake of this scheme.

Jaehyun, seeing how completely natural you were and being thoroughly impressed, made sure to add fire to the flame by hooking his arm around your waist and kissing your temple while saying, “We’re going to grab lunch, I’ll be back in about an hour.”

It was pure gold seeing the look on her face as you had clearly sold your part without a hitch, making sure before you left to say, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Nancy. I’ll be seeing you around here more now that I’m back”

Once you and Jaehyun were safely in the elevator, you both burst into laughter. You were completely satisfied with how that first introduction had gone and you knew Jaehyun felt the same.

“Damn, how good was the look on her face,” he mused, “Also great job on that job excuse thing, that was perfect.”

“I always have had a certain talent for improv, especially when It’s being used to get your ass out of trouble,” you responded just as humored.

You walked the three blocks to your favorite sandwich place that was just enough out of the way that people usually didn’t crowd there during lunch hour. You two and Joy, when she could leave school and come meet you, were regulars and sat in the same booth every time. You sat down eating your respective lunches and going about your usual routine of eating first and then spending the rest of your hour talking about anything and everything. You were in the middle of stuffing the last, way too big, bite into your mouth when Jaehyun said, “you look great by the way.”

You sputtered bread crumbs everywhere and almost choked laughing before chewing and finally swallowing enough to respond.

“Ha ha I know I could technically take two bites but then the ratio of the bread to filling isn’t right and I would rather look not so great stuffing a huge chunk of food in my mouth than have the last bite I’m going to taste of my favorite sandwich not be absolutely perfect.” You sighed out, having explained your sandwich methodology to him so many times.

Jaehyun merely looked at you, unamused, “Thank you, for that long winded explanation of why you feel the need to unhinge your jaw in front of me every single day, but I meant your outfit today. You clearly dressed up nicer than usual. Was all that for me, darling?” He finished off in a clearly sarcastic flirtatious manner, batting his eyelashes.

You scoffed as your heart definitely didn’t skip a beat, even though he was right, “Yeah clearly, I’m your girl now, I need to look the part. Don’t think I don’t know your type Jae.”

He only widened his smile and nodded his head, admitting you were correct, “Fair enough, fair enough. Seriously though, I think you really shook her. Hopefully she’ll pull back from the touchiness again. You’re really doing me a huge favor so thank you (y/n).” He said sincerely while holding your hand on the table.

You squeezed back, both of you being suckers for physical affection, “No problem, anything so that you don’t have to be uncomfortable going to work Jae,” And you meant it. Although this whole situation was kind of funny from a scheming point of view, you couldn’t help but be angered by how upset and uncomfortable Jaehyun had been in his office because of this woman. And you’ve told him countless times to report it, but he’s afraid of losing his position in the firm, not to mention the stereotype surrounding male victims of sexual harassment. He just had too many things holding him back from doing it. But if you could help in a way that Jaehyun is comfortable with, where you can also be sure to do everything in your power to actually stop her from harassing Jaehyun, you would do it.

__________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to think of professions that would fit their personalities?? A Little?? Lol it isnt really that important to the story so don’t worry about it! :)))
> 
> As always leave a comment if you feel like it!!! THnak you for reading ;_;


	3. The one when Jae asks a lot of you....again

As the winter grew colder, and your willingness to walk outside to eat lunch lessened, your fake relationship began to take a back seat in both of your lives. You would still occasionally grab lunch together to keep up appearances, but it seemed as if making your existence known that first time had held off some of Nancy’s more shameless displays. The holiday season was coming up soon and you had a whole week off from work. Unfortunately the holidays were also an extremely popular time for people to go on travel excursions. Which left you, on a Friday night, sitting on your living room couch with a skin treatment on and a fuzzy bathrobe, drinking a glass of wine while doing work you needed to get ahead of in order to have your whole vacation week free of stress. 

You were busy trying to book a string of hotels on the coast of Greece for an excursion you were in charge of planning. This required you making contact with reliable and affordable, but nice hotels and incenting them to block off large chunks of their available room space several months in advance, which was already not easy. Not to mention the necessity to find back-up plans for every location in case something goes wrong with one of the hotels. Needless to say you were completely distracted and so in the zone that when you looked up and saw Jaehyun sitting next to you on the couch you screamed and spilled the glass of wine you were just drinking from all over your face, effectively ruining your skin treatment as well as wasting perfectly good wine. 

“Ugh Jae why are you so quiet you’re like sneaky cat,” you complained, “now I need to wash this off fifteen minutes early thanks.”

He could only laugh knowing you were not actually upset, “I don’t even try to be quiet coming in, you just get so absorbed in your laptop.”

You didn’t respond because you were currently scrubbing your face with warm water, but that didn’t stop you from rolling your eyes at him from afar. When you walked back into the living room he was casually scrolling through your spreadsheet, observing all of the work you had done.

Jaehyun always seemed so interested in your work. You loved that when you scored a trip and got to research and plan the most interesting excursions possible in the most interesting places, you could comfortably come home and geek out over it with the support of your friend.

“Why are you home anyway, I thought you left with Joy like an hour ago to meet the other guys at that bar,” you asked, genuinely curious.

He casually responded, “yeah I was gonna go, but it still feels weird to leave any one of us alone. I would rather stay home and keep you company.”

You smiled at that, reflecting on how throughout your entire five year friendship, there was never a time when any one of the six of you were left on their own. It seemed like an exaggeration, but it had simply become a habit that none of you could shake. It didn’t feel natural to be alone anymore. You smiled at Jaehyun appreciatively and sat back in your place, letting him use your lap for a footrest while you calculated the last of the costs for your trip manager to review on Monday morning and hopefully approve. You worried your lip because you knew you had gone slightly over budget, but the payoff for the clients would be extraordinary. They were paying to get a once in a lifetime experience, were they not? 

You shut your laptop and unceremoniously tossed it onto the arm chair nearby and simply sat in the silence for a good few minutes. You hadn’t realized you were beginning to doze of until Jaehyun used the ball of his foot to shake you awake. He looked at you mischievously, “Wanna play Cutthroat Kitchen?” he asked.

Your drowsiness immediately vanished and you shot up and rushed to your shared kitchen to begin one of your favorite pastimes. Cutthroat Kitchen was a game you and your friends began to play during your senior year of college when you lived together in an on campus apartment. Because you had a full kitchen at your disposal, you would pick two contestants, while the remaining four would sit as judges. Then your friends would all pick out ridiculous ingredients that the competitors would be required to use. It started as a drunk game one night after coming home and having no money to order food, the result being a piece of white bread with blue frosting, sprinkles and a dash of honey mustard. 

Needless to say, none of you ate that concoction, but this sparked a real rivalry between the six of you. Of course, now that you had real kitchens with real ingredients and not just cupped ramen with the occasional condiment stolen from the dining hall, the game had become a little more fun, and a lot more edible. 

“Okay, since its like 9 o’clock and we’ve already eaten I say we do a baking challenge,” you suggested as you both washed your hands and rolled up your sleeves.

Jaehyun agreed and you two went to work picking out the ingredients the other would have to use. He ended up leaving you with most of the perfect ingredients to make your favorite desert, peanut butter caramel brownies with dark chocolate chunks. Meanwhile from the looks of it, he seemed to be preparing to make white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. 

You loved the rhythm of the two of you baking in tandem. It was quiet except for the playlist you once made for a road trip across country you, Jaehyun and Johnny had taken. That was the next vacation after you blew most of your savings and you really needed to be low key. The three of you would just drive without a plan and stop wherever peaked your interest. Sometimes camping under the stars, and sometimes putting yourselves up in cheap and dodgy motels. It was one of your favorite memories from college and this playlist was taking you back to that happy time. 

Jaehyun took a break from his soft humming once his cookies were safely baking in the oven and turned to you, resting his hip against the counter top, “So there’s two weeks until the holiday.” He stated.

“Yup there sure is,” you answered looking at him somewhat confusedly for his uncharacteristically awkward approach to conversation.

“And my company is bringing the whole office to a ski resort for a week,” he continued where he left off.

Getting tired of his long pauses, you huffed and prompted him to continue, “aannd...? Whats up Jae, spit it out.”

“I need you to come with me as my girlfriend because Nancy is going and I know I told you she’s been better but she noticed you not coming around as much and is starting to come onto me again,” he rambled off in one long breath 

You blinked a few times, taking a second to realize what he said, “Oh my god Jae, why didn’t you tell me! I would’ve dragged my lazy ass to your office every day these past few weeks if I knew,” you exclaimed.

He had the sense to look somewhat regretful as he explained, “I know you would and I love you for that but I felt bad and you had already been doing enough. It just sorta...stopped..being enough...” He trailed off.

It took you less that five seconds to decide, “Yeah I’ll go, and I’ll be super clingy and cringey and get her to finally stop thinking of you as free market. But Jae,” you continued in a more serious tone, “She won’t stop unless you make it clear that there are boundaries that cannot be crossed. I know you don’t want to lose your job or be demoted, but it’s just not worth it.”

“I know you’re right,” he sighed heavily, ”It’s just hard because at the beginning she seemed so nice and actually helped me a lot to get to where I am today, and now that she’s pushing the boundaries I don’t know how to reject her.” He truly looked worn out and helpless, and you knew there was nothing you could do for him except what you were doing, which was trying to make it seem like the two of you were so in love that Nancy lost all hope in seducing Jaehyun. In your head at that moment you resolved to make this work vacation the most romantic vacation of Jaehyun’s life.

“I know it’s hard. And it’s even harder to figure out exactly how to go about it, so until you decide what course you want to take, I’ll be here for you and I’ll support you in any way you need, okay?” You tried your hardest to express you genuineness to him through your words and the tight hug you gave him.

It was at that moment the oven dinged, and your baking contest was finished. You both agreed that it was a tie because of how amazing they tasted. Each grabbing at least one brownie and one cookie and taking them into your room where you curled up on your bed together, binge watching Brooklyn 99 until you both fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning you woke up in a state of overheating. You felt the urge to move but when you tried you were pinned down by a heavy mass and your right arm was completely numb. Opening your eyes you realized that you and Jaehyun must have fallen asleep watching TV last night. Any time this happened you always seemed to end up in a similar position throughout the night. You were spread out flat on your back with Jaehyun sleeping almost on top of you face down, with his head resting on your stomach, his right arm around your waist, and his left arm being what was pinning down your right arm making it tingle with pins and needles. Now this cuddling position was the usual with only slight variation, but the constant factor was that Jaehyun always seemed to rest his head either in the crook of your neck, on your chest, or on your stomach, with his limbs flailed out in all different directions.

You had no qualms about personal space and neither did he. In fact, your entire group of friends were all very physically affectionate. It wasn’t unusual so see you all kissing each other, hugging or holding hands and cuddling. That being said, you also had no qualms in waking people up and taking your personal space back. You took this opportunity to wake Jaehyun up in the funniest way your half groggy brain could muster up in the moment. You sat up slowly, carefully lifting his head with you, and then immediately jumped out from under him and dropped his weight, letting his face slam and bounce back off your mattress.

He immediately shot awake and looked as if he had just been thrown in to take test for a class he never took based on his facial expression. When he realized it was you who had woken him up and where he was, his face morphed into something more understanding, but nonetheless exasperated as he rubbed the sleep from his face.

You continued cackling as you walked out of your room, “C’mon get up, the others will be over soon for brunch.” You yelled as you walked over to Joy’s room to make sure she would be getting out of bed as well. 

When you saw her groggily signal to you ‘I’m up, don’t you dare come any closer to me’ you merely giggled again and moved to the kitchen to begin cooking for your second family.

You went all out, making pancakes, eggs, toasting bagels and toast, and putting out some fresh fruit, all accompanied by a fresh pot of coffee. You had just finished setting the last of the plates on the table when your doorbell rang. Jaehyun, who was now showered and dressed, answered the door for your three remaining friends while Joy slowly eased her way into her seat at the table, just crawling out of her room in time for their arrival.

Their arrival boosted the energy in the apartment by ten fold, the six of you greeting and hugging each other. When you finally sat down, the conversation didn’t lull once despite everyone gorging on the breakfast you made. You heard about the almost fights and the karaoke battles from the previous night and you told them about your newest escapades at work that they all seemed very excited about, and then the topic of conversation changed to your vacation plans and the apartment was silent for the first time since they had arrived.

You didn’t know why, but you were just now realizing you never told any of your other friends about you and Jaehyun fake dating, and you were feeling nervous now that the topic was finally being brought up.

You looked to Jaehyun, who was already staring in your direction and made eye contact, urging him to be the one to deliver the news. Considering it was his scheme and it’s for his benefit, you concluded that he would be the one to try and make everyone else understand.

He cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly and began by saying, “Actually me and (y/n) are going to a ski resort...” as he looked around the table.

“Oh? Which one? We can look and they might still have rooms for that week!” Lucas chimed in, clearly not picking up on Jaehyun’s tentative approach.

“No... you guys can’t come. It’s sort of for a work thing.” He continued to explain the situation, somewhat hoping they would drop it even though you knew that was highly unlikely.

“Wait,” Joy interrupted, “If it’s for a work thing then why is (y/n) going?” She seemed genuinely confused, obviously. Considering the idea that you and Jaehyun were fake dating and therefore had to go on this trip alone would never even begin to cross her mind.

You knew that it would be painful waiting for Jaehyun to finally spit it out, so you interrupted, “I’m going because Jae and I are convincing his creepy boss that we’re dating so she leaves him alone.”

There was a long beat of silence.

Looking around the table at all of your friend’s faces ushered in a sense of panic because you couldn’t tell what any of them were thinking. Just as your mind was starting to spiral you heard the telltale sputtering of Donghyuck attempting not to laugh. That was all it took for the entire table to burst into raucous laughter. You briefly pondered how you were ever worried in the first place. 

“Okay I don’t know what I was expecting but it was not that,” Donghuck managed through his tears, “I need to see this, maybe we should go anyway just to watch you from afar.”

“As much as I would love for you four to witness how great our acting skills are, I would rather not risk getting outed,” Jaehyun commented.

“Are you two sure you can pull this off? Like, I know you’re close but this is a little different,” Johnny said, clearly trying to psych you out.

You rolled your eyes, “Please we’ll be fine, no one’s suspected anything so far so I would say we’re doing a pretty good job.”

“What!? What do you mean so far? How long have you two been doing this for? And why didn’t I know, I’m so hurt. As your third roommate I feel I should have been informed as common courtesy.” Joy spewed off her rapid questions.

Jaehyun, very patiently, added, “It’s probably been about....almost two months?” He looked at you, you nodded, “Yeah, and I don’t know. We didn’t tell anyone because it’s really not a big deal. Like really all that’s changed is that (y/n) comes up to my office before we go out to lunch so my boss can see that im ‘with someone,’” he finished, sipping his coffee.

You nodded and looked around the table. It seemed as though there was really nothing anyone could say after that. Just to alleviate the weird tension in the room you initiated a game of nose goes to see who would have to clean all the dishes from brunch before you left the room to put on your movie of choice, as was your weekend tradition, laughing at Lucas and Jaehyun who you knew were too slow on the uptake to ever win that game. And so you all fell back into rhythm, like you always did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next two weeks went by without so much as a thought regarding the upcoming ski resort trip. Naturally, you were more invested in finishing all of the final touches on the two dozen or so excursions your company was sponsoring over your week of vacation. 

As you finally finished your absolute last bit of work until the new year, although it was a little later than you usually left work, you felt an intense relief wash over you. You were finally off the hook. There were no emails to respond to, no hotels to contact, no clients to reassure, you were completely absolved. Anything bad that the universe could send your way was no match for how utterly elated you felt. You made your way home, picking up some food from the Indian place down the street for you and your two roommates, listening to your happy playlist the whole way back. 

The three of you sat and ate together, being the first time all three of you had been present for dinner in almost three weeks. You talked about how crazy your days had been and speculated on what to get for your secret Santa’s this year. You didn’t reveal who you had even though it was Donghuck, but it was all part of the fun. The six of you took your annual secret Santa very seriously, in fact fights had started in years past because one of you decided to reveal someone’s secret Santa. Nevertheless, because you and Jaehyun would be on the ski trip on the actual holiday, you all decided to exchange the gifts when you came back, the day after New Years.

That was when you remembered.

“SHit-“ you exclaimed, as you immediately shot up and into your bedroom.

“What’s wrong?” Joy and Jaehyun asked in unison.

“I just realized I never packed for the trip and we’re leaving tomorrow! I’m so screwed, I’m going to be up so late.” You were really just whining at that point. It honestly wouldn’t take you that long, and you could pack quickly and be in bed by midnight. The thing is, you had really hoped to be in bed by at least eleven because you and Jaehyun were leaving at roughly 6 am the next day. 

The resurgence of that thought merely made you groan again and flop face first onto your bed.

“Stop being so dramatic, it’s only 9:30. Me and Jae will help you and you’ll be done by 10:30, 11 at worst, okay?” The brunette placated you. 

Feeling the all too common surge of love for your friends take over, you couldn’t resist hugging them both and dragging them down with you into a dog pile on your bed. 

“Okay please I can’t breath you’re squeezing my neck,” Jaehyun croaked out. You released him only feeling a little bad, “now tell me what I can do to help and let’s get this done so I can go to bed, it’s not like I’m the one driving or anything.” He said sarcastically.

The three of you spent only a little over an hour working in tandem until your bag was completely packed with anything you might need, and some things you definitely wouldn’t need. But, hey thats how you operated. You’d like to be prepared in case you peed your pants every single day of this trip, rather than having not enough underwear. It was about 11:15 when you finally fell asleep, definitely excited, but a little more nervous than you felt you should be. You chalked it up to having to spend a whole week with no one you knew, except Jaehyun of course...  
______________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos!!!!! I’m so happy :’))))))) 
> 
> I’ll be updating regularly so stay tuned!  
> <3<3


	4. The one when Jae is too perfect for Your own good

You were in a bed. A comfortable bed, but definitely not your bed, and as you looked at the ceiling, it was definitely not your room. Your mind only had two seconds to be confused before you heard a sigh like moan....and it was coming from you?

It wasn’t until then that you registered feeling of the heavy weight of another body on top of yours, the feeling of soft plush lips attached to the sweet spot on your neck, right behind your ear. You relished in the feeling of large, strong hands kneading at your hip and thigh, as you grabbed for purchase on anything you could hold. The strong muscular back of the body moving against yours, the pleasantly toned lean bicep. You heard the most heavenly low groan of pleasure as you felt yourself rock your hips upward one time as the face of the person started to come into view.

~Her Name is Rio and she Dances on the Sand, Just like that River twist-~

You were yanked out of one of the hottest wet dreams you had ever had to the unfortunate choice of ringtone by Duran Duran. As you laid in your bed, awake but eyes remaining closed, you tried to remember the feeling. Tried to remember who it was that had been the subject of your wet dream this time. You had them with celebrities mostly. Usually the hottest actor in the most recent movie you watched, but none of them ever got you this riled up before. When you glanced at your phone you saw the time glaring at you, mockingly. 5:30 am. You knew if you wanted to be up and ready with a decent breakfast by 6, you needed to get up now. 

So with the thought of not wanting to be late motivating you, you dragged your body into your private bathroom, turned on the hot water, and quickly brushed your teeth and peed while the water heated. You hopped in the shower and found yourself taking what felt like the quickest shower of your life. You had gotten laser hair removal on your armpits, legs and bikini line the previous year, and you honestly still hadn’t shaved that gained ten or so minutes off your shower time. Maybe this was you finally adjusting. You were already out of the bathroom by 5:40, dressed by 5:45 having already set out your outfit the night before, and shoving the last minute toiletries you needed this morning into your suitcase. You walked into the kitchen, seeing Jaehyun standing at the counter with a cup of coffee. He looked well rested and ready to go, as if he had already been awake for hours.

The two of you made hushed small talk, not wanting to wake up Joy, who deserved rest after dealing with holiday break distracted children all week. You both wanted her to rest and enjoy her time with the place to herself. After eating a small breakfast, anything too big made you feel sick this early in the morning, you headed out. You already felt tired again as soon as you were out on the open road. Knowing you had a couple hours to go, you told Jaehyun, “Wake me up when we’re there.” To which you heard him muttering. “Way to just abandon me, how’s this better than just going alone..” is the last thing you heard before you were sound asleep again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Jaehyun nudged you awake you were expecting to see a beautiful ski lodge, but all you saw surrounding you were endless snowy mountain caps. Although they were beautiful too, you resented not being able to sleep the whole way there. You beamed a glare at the driver and it seemed he read your mind as he only chuckled in liu of an apology.

“We’ll be there in like a half hour anyway relax.”

You most certainly would not relax. Well you would, but you would try to drag out feigning anger for as long as you could first. He realized this and decided to just go on with the reason he woke you up in the first place.

“I know we pulled a story out of our ass when Nancy asked, but this is gonna be a lot more socializing and people asking about us, so we need to come up with a relationship story so we’re on the same page.” He explained.

You huffed knowing that he was right, “Okay then, well she already knows we were friends first in college and that we’ve been dating for six- wait seven months now. So what else do we need...” you trailed off following your train of thought.

“Oh! got it,” you snapped, “We need a confession story.” You stated proudly.

“What do you mean confession?’ Jaehyun asked.

“Well if I was best friends with someone for five years and then all of a sudden realized I had deeper feelings for them I would assume there would be some grand touching story revolving around the way I finally told them I love them, after all, you’re putting everything you have on the line, you know?” 

Jaehyun was nodding, following along to what you were saying, but didn’t say anything in return.

“......sooo.”

“sooooo what?” he asked.

“Well damn Jae I’m not gonna do all the work here.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say! I can’t think of anything!” he whined.

“Well just-...I don’t know. How would you confess to a girl usually? It’s supposed to be passing as what you actually did.” you prompted him.

“hmmm let’s see...” he pondered, “If it was you..which I guess it’s supposed to be so this is good,” he chuckled, “I would definitely be wicked nervous to tell you because you’re my best friend so I would approach it carefully.” You watched him as he talked while he kept his eyes on the road, only looking over occasionally. “I would probably come up with some stupid scheme that would involve spending more time alone with you, being more touchy and affectionate, saying nice things that could be seen as flirting if you were actually looking at me the same way, and just build it up that way.” It was very interesting to you, seeing how much thought he was actually putting into this. You assumed he would just say he confessed with some huge cheesy romantic speech that inevitably won you over, because it’s not like anybody here knows what your relationship was like before anyway. They don’t know what you like. Even still, it seemed like Jaehyun really wanted to make this as close to reality as possible. “After.. however long of that, when I finally felt some type of security that you liked me more than a friend too, I would probably confess to you at home because I know you hate sappy public confessions, and I would say it in the simplest terms I could find.” You were honestly enraptured at this point. You knew how well Jaehyun knew you, but hearing this. Hearing how perfectly his romantic sensibility aligned with yours made your heart ache with longing. It was the type of longing where you don’t know exactly what you’re longing for, but you still ache all the same. “I would say something like, ‘I’ve known for years how much you mean to me, how much I love you. But it wasn’t until recently I finally figured out that I don’t want to be with anyone else but you. I only want to be with you, if you’ll have me.’” His confession, despite being fake still made your breath hitch. You were slack jawed, staring at your best friend who was driving on as if he hadn’t just spewed some line you would only ever hear in a romcom.

He quickly glanced over at you when you didn’t respond for almost a whole minute, “What is that not good? We can brainstorm something else?”

You felt bad with how quickly he disregarded his own idea, but also you were thrown for such a loop by how quickly he could go from romantic drama leading man to slouching, nonchalant Jaehyun in .2 seconds. “No! no no no, that is perfect.... how the hell did you come up with that, it’s like you were reading from a romance novel.” you added jokingly to hide how affected you actually were. 

He merely chuckled and shrugged, not without blushing slightly, accrediting it to watching endless romcoms with you and Joy over the last five years. You decided to accept it and shook your head to get yourself back on track, you still had more to discuss. “Now that that’s settled, what else do we need to be on the same page about?” You asked, genuinely thinking.

“Probably PDA?...I know we’re already pretty touchy, but we need to make it seem like it’s out of the need to be touching and not just comfortability.”

For some reason this made you squirm, “You’re right, I would say any PDA that’s not blatantly gross like hard core making out or something is fine by me considering we already do most of it, we can just do what comes naturally” you mused. “You just have to do your darnedest to make lovey dovey eyes at me whenever you have the chance, okay?... I’ll do the same.” You didn’t know why this topic made you so fidgety. You looked out of the corner of your eye to see if Jaehyun was showing any signs of being uncomfortable, because if he wasn’t you didn’t want to make it weird by seeming unwilling. Because honestly unwilling was the last word you would use do describe how you were feeling. 

You and Jaehyun had kissed before, the first time being drunk at that party after one week of knowing him. It had never meant anything and it had never changed your relationship, and it shouldn’t now. He seemed normal, but his nonchalance looked performative, like he was trying really hard to make his body look relaxed in his seat. His face gave something away, though. You could see his jaw slightly tensed and the line of his small smile somewhat rigid, which you pointedly decided to ignore when he nodded in agreement. Neither of you would want to be making this awkward and that was enough for you to rely on right at this moment.

“Okay next...our first date. What did we do?”

“Ummm I would probably take you to the park to walk around and watch the street performers, maybe stop by the custom crafts table you love before just going home and watching something together with takeout dinner if I’m being honest.” He admitted.

You once again smiled and acknowledged how well Jaehyun knew you, because that sounded like the most perfect first date you could think of. “Nice, a man of simplicity, after mine own heart.”

He laughed silently, clearly relieved by how receptive you were to his ideas. Mutually feeling that everything that needed to be sorted out was at this point, you both turned your attention bak to the road for the remaining minutes of you trip. Your happy playlist filling the car with quiet background music, bringing you both back to your road trip vacation together and washing a sense of calm throughout the vehicle.  
___________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is Very Short but I think im just gonna post two rn lmao bc I missed like. Four days so yea
> 
> As always leave kudos or comments if u liked it, if you didnt, if u have suggestions....literally ANY thing is welcome :))))


	5. The one when you arrive and it’s already a little too much

Arriving at the ski lodge was nothing like you thought it would be. You thought, or at least hoped, that the early time of your arrival, it only being 8:30 in the morning, would ensure that the two of you could check in and settle into your room quietly. 

But no. In direct conflict with your wishes, the universe decided to have the one woman you despised waiting at the front counter. She was standing with a checklist, already micromanaging with her loud shrill voice. You noticed her before Jaehyun and let your instincts take over, immediately nuzzling into his side while bringing his arm firmly around your waist. His head snapped over to you and he had a questioning look on his face. In order to explain without looking suspicious you lifted yourself up on your tiptoes and whispered close to his ear, “At the front counter. The vulture is already here....now make some sort of cute face so it looks like I’m your hilarious adorable girlfriend.” 

From the outside, your quick thinking did the trick. Nancy immediately locked her gaze on you and Jaehyun. Seeing his adorable nose scrunch and laugh being directed at you made her blood boil. You finally made it to the counter, fully composed and ready to fall into your character. Seeing her attention already being directed at Jaehyun and Jaehyun only, you decided to cut in and kill her with kindness.

“Nancy! So good to see you again!,” you exclaimed with a hug, “You know, when Jae asked me if I wanted to come, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get to know you better, especially with this beautiful scenery as an added bonus,” You continued as you lead back into Jaehyun’s chest, reaching up to touch his face when you mentioned his name. You felt his hands find purchase on you hips without any hesitation and let out a genuine smile at how jealous that would make the woman in front of you.

Nancy smiled at you, or at least her version of what a smile should look like, and half-assed an attempt at an enthusiastic response, “oh yes! I remember you, (y/n) right? Jaehyun’s plus o-“

“Girlfriend,” Jaehyun interrupted, cutting of Nancy’s feeble attempt to insult you. “She should be listed next to my name, thanks.”

Nancy let out the fakest sounding chuckle you’d ever heard and turned her attention to her list, trying to hide her grimace at Jaehyun’s comment. She found your names and crossed them off, giving the desk attendant the room number assigned to you so they could grab your keys. The girl at the desk smiled at you pleasantly as she handed you your keys and said, “You two are lucky. That’s one of the nicest suites we have thats not the honeymoon suite. It’s perfect for a romantic vacation.”

Yours and Jaehyun’s faces showed genuine elation at her statement. Of course the attendant, Lisa was her name, and Nancy assumed it was in anticipation for your romantic getaway, but you and Jaehyun were honestly holding back laughter at how perfectly Lisa had played to your favor, unwittingly as it was. Jaehyun took your hand and made way towards the elevator, the two of you leaning into each other to hide your giggles. Nancy made sure to call after you, “Our first mandatory welcome activity is the luncheon at 11:30!” Jaehyun yelled out “See you there!” and took the last step into the elevator before the doors closed and you two finally released the laughs you were holding. If the whole trip was going to go that perfectly this would be another story for the books of yours and Jaehyun’s friendship.

When you finally got you your room on the fourth floor you immediately gasped while you took it in. The first thing you noticed was the dark hardwood floors that drew your eyes immediately to the far wall. The wall was almost entirely window, not completely floor to ceiling, but enough that you were sure you would never have a shortage of natural light. You quickly took note of the sun’s position, knowing that it only rose a few hours previously, with excitement that you would be waking up to the sun rising every morning. The windows looked out onto the most vast and picturesque snowy valley you had ever seen. You could see the tips of trees stretching for miles until they finally converged with other mountains in the range. You were sure this was an exclusive area of the resort because you had no visual of the heavily trafficked ski slopes, or the famed outdoor heated pool. You didn’t mind being secluded, because that meant more alone time for you. You took one last look outside the window as the light as dust snow was lightly blown off the trees by bursts of swirling wind before you turned to actually take in the rest of the room. 

What you saw served to draw another loud gasp of awe from your lips. The large king sized bed was centered on the North facing wall, with crisp but comfortable looking white sheets and comforters adorning the mattress. Flanking the bed on either side were two night tables that seemed to be carved out of white birch trees in an extravagant design that looked as if it could have been found in that way naturally. Both side tables had simple, but flattering lamps on them as well. On the South facing wall there was a rustically framed false fireplace. It had a TV mounted to the wall above it and a white faux fur carpet placed on the floor in front. The fireplace was perfectly offset by a beautifully selected furniture set consisting of a couch, two armchairs and a coffee table. The creamy colored leather upholstery complemented the dark wood of the coffee table serving to add to the extremely luxurious ambiance of the room. Taking up the blank wall space on either side of the fireplace was the two dressers. These tied the room together with their white birch finish and dark walnut accessories.

You quickly rushed over to see the bathroom, curious what else this room could amaze you with. The bathroom was off to the right immediately when you walked in the room and opened up to a larger than necessary tiled space. The right wall house a raised jacuzzi bathtub large enough for two, with a toilet on the far wall facing the door. Against the wall to the left of the door was a vanity sink with two basins and a large mirror adorning the wall. Then, on the left wall was a masterfully crafted waterfall shower. You noted with trepidation that the entire shower was encased in frosted glass...including the wall that faced the lounge area of the suite. It wasn’t completely transparent, but a naked body’s silhouette cold definitely be discernible from outside of the bathroom.

When you finally walked back into the main room, you beelined straight for the bed, hoping to take yet another nap before you were required to interact with the rest of Jaehyun’s coworkers. “I’m gonna take a nap,” you informed Jaehyun when he was alerted of your presence.

“Again, really?” He mused, “I’m gonna hop in the shower then, I opted out of showering this morning so I could get more sleep before the drive.” He explained as he sifted through his suitcase for his toiletries. You only hummed in response until you heard....rather, sensed him stop in his tracks.

“Uuuh-“ he began

“I know the shower is see through. I won’t be looking so don’t worry, we’ll just have to go by honor system,” you interrupted. You didn’t give him the chance to have the internal crisis you had about your naked body being almost completely exposed to your best friend. That was a line you had never crossed with anyone except Joy, and only a handful of times in the years you’ve known her. Sure, you had all gone ‘streaking’ together but the most you dared to strip down to was undergarments. The fear that the campus police officers would see you’re privates was enough to strike that idea from your list then and there. Even if you had, this was a whole different implication. While streaking is wild and fun, and you’re more focused on yourself anyway, showering is intimate and private and is meant to be that way. You rarely showed people your naked body because to you, it was meant to be something special. It was supposed to hold weight when you did show someone, and the idea of just having no choice in the matter resulting in your best friend seeing you naked was making your anxiety start to peak. You engaged in several breathing exercises that you had learned throughout several years with different counselors and therapists and slowly but surely brought yourself down.

You fell asleep after maybe 10, maybe 15 minutes of overthinking and subsequent breathing. And that was how Jaehyun found you when he walked out of the bathroom, sprawled out on your back with your mouth wide open. Shoes still on. He decided to let you sleep for at least another hour, leaving you plenty of time before the luncheon to get yourself freshened up and unpack your bag if you wanted, just shaking his head and heading over to the couch to do some reading with a contented smile adorning his face.  
_______________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes another short chapter....these seemed way longer when I was writing them but oh well
> 
> ALSO Jaehyun’s nose scrunch had to make an appearance bc its my favorite thing about him TBH
> 
> Leave a comment leave a kudos ;)


	6. The one when you notice Jaehyun...in a new way

Being woken up from your slumber for the second time that day went over worse than the first time. You woke up to Jaehyun throwing a pillow at your head, “(y/n) wake up! I fell asleep too and now we’re gonna be late for the welcome lunch, hurry!” He exclaimed. You never did well with being rushed first thing after you’d woken up, but you somehow managed to be up and ready to go with a mint in your mouth to get rid of the taste of sleep in less than a minute. The pair of you left your room hand in hand after making sure you had everything you would need.

As you and Jaehyun walked into the dining area with just your pinky fingers linked, you came face to face with Nancy, manning some sort of check in table. She took in your appearances and scoffed, looking nothing short of seething. Next to her was the beautiful man you had met the first time you went to Jaehyun’s office. He must be the receptionist or Office Manager, you guessed. He looked just as well groomed as before, only more casually dressed this time around. You still took this opportunity to take in his appearance. His flawlessly smooth looking skin that housed the perfect proportions of his facial features, the interesting array of piercings adorning both of his ears. His hair that was a subtle but eye-catching shade of a steely blue/grey color, and his smile of course that was as gentle and welcoming as ever.

“Hey, Jungwoo! Good to see you, man,” Jaehyun stated as he and Jungwoo embraced in a familiar way. So, his name was Jungwoo. You only smiled and waited for Jaehyun to introduce you, which he did right away. “This is my girlfriend, (y/n). (Y/n), this is Jungwoo, he’s like one of the best guys in the office.” Jaehyun widely smiled, placing his hand on your lower back to almost present you in a way.

You smiled genuinely and shook Jungwoo’s hand, “Yes I remember your face from the times that I’ve stopped by for lunch. I’m glad we’re being properly introduced.”

“Likewise,” Jungwoo smiled. You almost blanched at how delicate his voice sounded. You noticed it before, but had assumed it was in a conscious effort to preserve the quiet ambiance of the office. Seeing now that he was naturally tranquil made you like him even more and your smile widened. He took this opportunity to lean close over the table and whisper into both of your ears, “It looks like you two have enjoyed your room a little too much, huh? You might want to fix your hair and clothes before people start talking” He smirked with a wink in the most shockingly mischievous display you had ever witnessed.

You and Jaehyun choked on the sudden accusation, but could not deny it without causing a scene, so you merely adjusted the clothes you were wearing and smoothed down your hair with your hands, your face and neck red and burning hot. Nancy took note of your frantic attempt at looking presentable and scoffed even louder. You passively wondered if she was even reacting to you, or if she just had a phlegmy throat she was trying to clear out.

Jungwoo then turned to his list and sent you to your table assignment, stating “Oh you’ll be sitting at the same table as Nancy and I.” He had a look on his face, as if saying ‘I’m happy we’re sitting together but at what cost.’ You tried to communicate with your eyes that it would all be fine, and moved on your way.

Once you were out of ear shot, Jaehyun leaned down slightly so as not to seem rude for immediately talking about the other man, “Jungwoo is my closest friend in the office. He already knows who you are because I always talk about you, but he doesn’t know that the dating thing is fake,” he informed you as you nodded along. You got to your table and intentionally sat to the right of Jungwoo’s coat forcing Jaehyun to sit to your right, furthest from Nancy, who was on Jungwoo’s left side. The lunch was a buffet style, and you were starving so you immediately made a move for the food table. 

Jaehyun followed and you two were sitting eating your food before anyone else at your table even sat down. A problem you had always had since you became best friends was unintentionally isolating yourselves. It happened all the time, but you never realized it. You would just become so invested in your conversations you would end up tuning out the rest of the room, to a fault. It became an issue in situations like this, when there were now six other people at the table all being introduced, and you having missed half of it because you and Jaehyun ended up turned into each other talking like no one else was in the room.

You tried to subtly nudge Jaehyun in a kind way of saying ‘shut up now we’re being rude’ and turned your attention to the rest of the table. Jungwoo quickly leaned into your side and saved you from social embarrassment, “from left to right after Nancy; Jennie, Irene, Baekhyun, Minho, Chittaphon....you can just call him Ten, and Mark.” And he leaned away, as if he hadn’t just saved your life.

It was your turn to introduce yourself, following the template you had heard Jaehyun use. “Hi everyone, my name is (yfs/yln), I am actually a Travel Support Specialist so I’m just here with Jaehyun as a guest, but I hope to meet some new and interesting people. And maybe learn something new while I’m here as well,” you finished with a charming smile. Everyone at the table seemed extremely impressed with your title and immediately rattled off questions in your direction about what the travel industry is actually like. You answered to the best of your ability, throwing in enough lighthearted jabs with the serious passionate answers that everyone seemed taken with you by the end of it. Each pair of eyes being on you made you begin to retreat back to your safe space, that space being Jaehyun, only to catch him already looking at you with the same enamor only mixed with something else, hidden deeper. You held his eyes for a little longer than could be considered normal before Jungwoo clearing his throat to move on ripped you from the moment. You blinked and resumed your regular breathing, not really understanding why you were out of breath at the moment, but turning your attention to Jungwoo all the same.

The next two hours consisted of small ice-breaker games that were meant to get to know your table mates better in preparation for the last game of the luncheon. You quite enjoyed these types of activities because you liked to get to know people, and you found everything they chose to share interesting in some way. If it wasn’t an inherently interesting anecdote or fact, you kept yourself engaged by trying to understand what the reason was that they chose to share that story, why they chose to portray that image to a new group of people. 

The luncheon almost went off without a hitch. In fact, you were actively thinking that Nancy hadn’t done anything awful besides throwing dirty looks your way the entire time when she decided to break that streak. “So (y/n), have you and Jaehyunnie here thought about your future? After all, after being with one person person for so long, the rest of your life can seem very daunting. Not to mention the prospect of children...” she interjected as the perfect opportunity presented itself when Minho mentioned that his wife was pregnant with their second child. 

Something about that question grinded your gears, maybe it was the insinuation that you would grow tired of each other one day, which was never an option for you. Or maybe it was the way she outright disregarded the fact that you and Jaehyun were only friends for the first five years you knew each other enforcing the stereotype that men and women can’t be just friends. Or maybe you were uncomfortable because you had never thought of Jaehyun in a sexual way before, and the mention of children without a doubt brought these new and confusingly not unpleasant images to your mind. 

Whatever it was, you were so irritated you decided to shut her down in front of the entire table, “Actually yes, we’ve talked about the future so many times, after all we knew each other for so long before dating anyway, I think neither one of us can see a future without the other” you looked into Jaehyun’s eyes, seeing curiosity in them, you held eye contact, “and we both want children so much, but we’re waiting until we’re officially married,” you said with a smile, playing with the rings adorning the fingers of the hand he had comfortingly rested on your thigh. You watched Jaehyun’s face grow slightly pink with heat. “But that’s not for years to come, we’re both still so young...” you got an idea, “What about you Nancy? Do you have children? Or grandchildren maybe?” You stuck it to her with the most innocent face you could muster.

You saw the entire rest of the table freeze watching the exchange between you while in the corner of your eye Jungwoo was making a poor attempt at hiding his smirk. Nancy sputtered, “Wh-what-grandchildren! I-I-“ she couldn’t hold back, feeling affronted.

“Oh! Please don’t take offense! I meant nothing by it, my mother is a young grandmother herself,” You unabashedly responded with another smile.

There was a long pause now that the ball was in Nancy’s court since she was struggling to come up with a response. Jungwoo took some pity and directed the table’s attention back to Minho by asking him how his wife’s pregnancy is going. The other members of your lunch party picked up the queue and jumped on the bait they were thrown. Jungwoo finally let his smile slip through now that the attention wasn’t on Nancy and looked over to you as if to say ‘that was brutal but I loved it.’ You liked this camaraderie you had already formed with Jungwoo and started to look forward to the rest of the weeks’ vacation.

The final teamwork game was a stupid hula hoop game you remember playing your freshman year of college. The objective was to move each person through the hoop without letting go of each other’s hands. The first table to succeed would win a free trip to the resort’s most exclusive ski slope that wasn’t included in your all expenses paid vacation. Your table lined up in this order, Nancy, Jaehyun, you, Jungwoo, Jennie, Minho, Irene, Baekyun, then Mark. You strategized that alternating heights would make the hoop flow better down the line. Nancy began and made it through the hoop fairly quickly, but almost lost her balance. Naturally she made sure to lean into Jaehyun for support so she didn’t fall and you held yourself back from rolling your eyes at how desperate for contact she was. Jaehyun helped you through the hoop by lifting his arm over your head, letting the hoop fall naturally and then the only thing for you to do was to step through it to pass it on to Jungwoo. You knew you couldn’t release your hands so you just leaned closer to him to watch the rest of your teammates struggling with the technique. You couldn’t help but laugh and feel a warmth in your chest as Jaehyun maneuvered to somehow get his arm around your shoulder. His right arm was wrapped around you, resting on your right shoulder, with your left hand still attached to his, crossing your body and holding him in place. It was a nice feeling and you almost forgot that there were eyes like daggers on the back of your skull at this very moment.

When your team finally finished, nearly in last place, you were all excused from the luncheon to explore on your own and enjoy the accommodations. You were free until the next mandatory event, which wasn’t until the following day. Jaehyun’s arm stayed around you even when the game ended, and you walked slowly with him out of the hall, saying goodbye to the friends you had made at your table. You headed back to the room in comfortable silence. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been about an hour of relaxing in quiet companionship when you started to get restless. You moved yourself from the bed where you were laying down to the couch where Jaehyun was once again reading his book. You flopped down onto the couch resting your head on his lap. You were hoping he would get the hint that you were trying to distract him and suggest something to do besides scrolling through twitter or napping, but he simply adjusted his grip so he could move his left hand to your head and begin running his fingers through your hair. You only pouted for a second before you started to enjoy the feeling, closing your eyes to savor his touch. Laying here, with your head on Jaehyun’s lap, his fingers gently massaging your scalp, you felt like you could honestly fall asleep again. And you almost allowed yourself to surrender to the temptation. But you knew that any more sleep at this point would only ensure that you stayed up all night.

Reluctantly you interrupted his ministrations. “Jae,” you spoke softly. He hummed to acknowledge that he had heard you, “I’m bored. I wanna do something.”

He read a few more lines of his book, obviously very enthralled in the words on the page, before folding the corner and resting the closed book on the coffee table. He didn’t stop playing with your hair as he looked down at you, smiling as he asked, “What do you want to do? There’s plenty of stuff around here.”

You thought for a moment before your face visibly brightened with an idea. “Why don’t we go to the spa? I remember at the luncheon they said that there are certain complementary services for us this week.” you were so bored only several minutes earlier that you forgot there was even anything to distract you from that boredom, you just wanted to complain. Now, however, you were practically bursting with excitement. This was the perfect way to start off the week, with a relaxing oil massage and maybe a skin treatment. Anything to take those last morsels of remaining stress in your body and mind and extract them so you could truly appreciate the joys of an all expenses paid vacation.

Jaehyun wasn’t quite as excited looking as you thought he would be, although he didn’t outright oppose the idea. You grabbed his hand in yours, quickly rolling off the couch from your laying position and placing yourself on your knees in front of him. You held tighter onto Jaehyun’s hand and put your hands in a begging position. “Please Jaehyun! It’ll be so relaxing, I promise you’ll like it too! Who doesn’t like a great massage c’moooonnn...” you begged, dangerously close to whining. You knew he was probably going to agree, and even if he didn’t you could still go alone, but you would rather spend your time with your best friend, and a little guilt tripping never killed anyone.

Jaehyun squirmed in his seat trying to get off the couch but having trouble with you practically on your knees in between his thighs holding him down tight by your grip on his hand. He refused to make eye contact with you, but quickly agreed with a mumbled, “uuh..fine, sure. Now let go.” before being released from your grasp when you leaned back to cheer. He rose to his feet and turned away from you, but not before you saw the light dusting of pink high on his cheekbones. Your eyes twinkled in mirth even though you decided not to draw attention to it. You quickly stood up and went to the shared closet that occupied the space directly across from the bathroom door. If you were going to be rubbed down with luxurious oil you were also going to wear a loose fitting, comfortable dress with nothing underneath to ensure maximum leisure. After a quick change of clothes in the bathroom you grabbed Jaehyun’s hand and a room key and took off towards the second floor where the spa was located. Yes you had already researched the spa beforehand. 

When you and Jaehyun arrived, you were greeted brightly by an older woman who looked like she had really taken great care of herself her entire life. She had a youth in her eyes that you sometimes even saw lost in your own reflection. Her name tag read ‘Bethany’ and she needed little more than a simple hello from you and a quick glance down at your interlocked pinkies to suggest a recently upgraded special package deal. You made sure to mention that you were here attending the company retreat and you could only partake in the complimentary services. She only winked in response and said, “Oh, don’t worry dear, the company’s contract covers most of the treatments, there are simply other more atmospherical elements to the couple’s package that we’ll just say is on the house, how about that?” 

You stared at the woman, wide-eyed and looked over at Jaehyun to see the same look on his face, “Wow, that’s very kind of you, thank you. We’ll take it.” With that she led you down several hallways where there were single rooms, group rooms and different beautician stations scattered about. The three of you did not stop walking until she had finally led you to a room in the back of the spa. The door slid open and revealed a completely secluded mini-spa room for just the two of you. Bethany ushered you into the room and left you with instructions to strip down to nothing and put on the white robes provided, that the masseuses would be there to service you shortly. 

Once the door shut, you finally had time to fully process the situation. Obviously you would be assumed to be fine getting full body massages together considering everyone thought you were a couple. Who knows what else this mysterious “couples package” had in store, but your heart was already beating a little harder than normal and you briefly regretted begging him to come with you. You and Jaehyun looked at each other, trying to decided exactly how much of your awkwardness you were going to reveal to the other. It turns out, a good amount. You both chuckled nervously and shifted from foot to foot. You couldn’t even look up from the floor to see if Jaehyun was looking at you because you were too afraid of making eye contact. This situation once again aligned with your anxieties about your best friend seeing you naked.

Jaehyun broke the thick silence by clearing his throat. He sighed before speaking, “okay so not entirely ideal, but we’re going by honor system right? I won’t look if you won’t.” You could tell he was trying to make you more comfortable by using the words you had used to comfort him earlier. You had to admit, it worked. You didn’t know what your anxiety made you believe would happen if someone who you weren’t ready to show saw your body in your most vulnerable state, but your logical side talked you down before it had the chance to spike. You know Jaehyun. You’ve known him for years. It’s not like he was going to betray your trust like that when he knew you weren’t comfortable being naked in front of him.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “umm we can just turn our backs to each other any time we have to move stations that way we can’t look. And I would prefer you to only see my back and vice versa if we accidentally slip up so that’ll be.....good..fine..umm” you were saying while biting the corner of your nail. You only ever did that when you were really worrying about something, and Jaehyun picked up on it.

He walked over to you, grabbing your hand so you would stop worrying your nail and reassured you one more time, “It’ll be fine, remember we’re here to relax, just let the people do their jobs and don’t think about it.” He looked into your eyes with so much genuineness that you felt yourself nod and finally relax. It was time for you to force your brain into relaxation mode. You grabbed your bathrobe and immediately turned your back to Jaehyun hoping he would just take the hint. You were about to lift your dress when you got nervous again and started to turn around. Catching Jaehyun lifting his shirt over his head, reveling his surprisingly muscular back, caused you to whip back around with a small squeak.

You heard Jaehyun call out, “everything okay?” And you made a small noncommittal noise of affirmation, not trusting your voice at the moment. You tried to shake the image out of your head of how his muscles rippled under his skin as he reached over his head, revealing the slim waist line and drawing your attention to the tightness of his jeans. Safely in your bathrobe, you shook your head hard once more, trying to get ahold of yourself. This was an entirely new sensation, having never before looked at Jaehyun in this way. You had seen him shirtless, in bathing suits and the like, but your mind never registered anything past objective observation when it came to his body. You groaned, internally this time, and wished for this masseuse to arrive quickly so you could focus on anything else besides your confusing feelings towards your best friend.

There was a quick succession of knocks on the door, simply a measure of curtesy to let you know that your masseuses had arrived. The two women walked into the room with docile smiles on their faces and introduced themselves. They led you to the first corner of the room, “If you please miss, sir. Before the skin treatment you’ll need to spend a minute or two in the steam room to open up your pores. You can leave your robes on or off, it’s up to you.” Your beautician explained.

You and Jaehyun looked at each other, nodded, and walked into the room with your robes on. It became increasingly easier to relax as you laid back against the bench and closed your eyes. You and Jaehyun simply existed together, not bothering to talk just to fill the silence. Once you were done in the steam room, you were feeling more optimistic, ready to just go along with what they had in store for you. A facial cleanser and toner were applied quickly, followed by some sort of treatment serum. 

“Now if you’ll both remove your robes and lay face down on the table, we’ll give you some privacy.” The second woman said, and like clockwork they both turned around. You reached for your robe while eyeing Jaehyun, making eye contact and quickly motioning to him to turn around. You heard him chuckle lowly as he obeyed and so you did the same, quickly disrobing and laying face down on your table. As if sensing your growing sense of urgency, your beautician quickly turned and place a small towel over your backside, finally covering the last bit of your body that was exposed. 

You knew that Jaehyun’s beautician would have done the same, so you turned your head to the right to look over at him and see if you could tell how he was feeling. He was already staring when you looked, and smiled contentedly in your direction when your eyes met. That look in his eyes made you think. You closed your eyes and relaxed as your beautician began applying the skin treatment and wrapping your body. Your thoughts were mainly surrounding a certain man who may have been your best friend of five years, who also may have been making you feel way too many emotions on the very first day of this vacation. 

You thought back to two months ago, the first time you took on this role of being Jaehyun’s fake girlfriend. Your mind struggled with itself trying to make sense of it all. It had been so natural for the both of you to convince other people you were in love with each other. It made you stop and allow yourself to really deal with this train of thought, because all this time you had been rationalizing it by saying to yourself ‘of course people believe it. We do love each other. We’re just changing small behaviors to make it look romantic instead of platonic’ and you would tell yourself that every time you caught your body melting at his touches or your mind reflexively thinking of him as ‘my boyfriend’ and not just as ‘Jaehyun.’ It was all very confusing in your mind and you hated the feeling of not knowing what you were feeling. Was this feeling merely a symptom of the scheme? You couldn’t figure out if these inkling feelings would have ever surfaced if you had never started fake dating him. Furthermore, you would have never let your mind wander and think about him in an inappropriate way if these inklings had never had a reason to emerge in the first place. For all these reasons, you were becoming a confused, on edge, and frankly horny mess. As you forced your mind to clear itself of all these overlapping and tangled thoughts, it gave way to the image of Jaehyun undressing once more, and this time you didn’t fight it off.  
______________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY WHO SAW REGULAR  
> Hashkhdlsgldfhgsahgjdf  
> It made me that muhc more invested in this story wtf Jaehyun looked SO GOOD in the video!!  
> Yell about it in the comments if you want I will respond bc I need someone to yell with!!!!!!!!
> 
> Ps. Im posting 2 chapters rn bc they kind of go together but I didnt want this one chapter being way longer than all the others!


	7. The one when Jaehyun noticess you...in a new way

Little would you know, that Jaehyun was looking over at you, watching as your eyes finally stopped twitching behind the lids. He let his fondness creep out as he saw your lips pop open, being squished adorably by your left cheek that was pressed against the table. He knew it wouldn’t be long before you started drooling. Once his wave of affection passed, he began to think more seriously. He felt himself losing it. Never in a million years would he think that asking you to fake date him would result in this mess. When he suggested it back at the end of October, he was excited because he knew you would do a good job, and that you knew more than enough about him to pull it off. He really was just thinking about getting his boss off his back. He didn’t expect the last two months of holding you differently, speaking to you more lovingly, and spending more alone time with you would affect him in this way. The effects were heightened ten fold by the way you seemed to seamlessly transition from being the same best friend he knew, to a woman in his eyes. He had never thought of you in this way before, always seeing the goofy, or competitive, or upset and in need of a friend sides of you. Whatever side he was being shown, it was definitely never you leaning back against him and wrapping his arms around you, making him feel like he wanted hold you forever in his arms you were that delicate. It was never you looking into his eyes with so much love and devotion and honesty, that he would fall for it too if he wasn’t in on the scheme. It was certainly never you calling him “my love,” a pet name that made his heart swell and his knees go weak.

That was another thing he never expected from this. The ease at which the two of you had accidentally integrated this scheme into your every day lives was alarming. He had begun initiating couple-type contact on the regular, never even realizing because you never pointed it out either. He had started actually calling you darling, and noticed with extreme satisfaction the first time you instinctively responded even without anyone around to act in front of. Not to mention the first time you called him “love” at home by accident. Now that he’s reflecting on it, he thinks that’s the moment he realized this might not be all pretend for him. From then on, he made a point to compliment you more and do things specifically to make you happy, or so that he could spend time alone with you. In fact, the night he asked you to come on this stupid trip was a lame attempt on his part to have the night alone with you. He didn’t end up getting any hints from you about how your feelings may..(or may not) have progressed, but waking up snuggled into your stomach the next morning was worth it for him.

What really had been getting to him today, and god it’s only the first day of the trip he noted with dread, was the realization that over the course of his week, you and him were guaranteed to be placed in so many intimate situations that he never had to deal with while this was going on at home. His first taste of sweet agony was during the car ride when you had been discussing your cover story. He loved the task of coming up with fake confessions and fake first dates because they were just that..fake. He was grateful for the scheme because it gave him the chance to not only show you how well he knows you and how perfect of a boyfriend he would actually be, but to basically confess his newfound feelings to you without any consequences. He felt a glimmer of hope when he saw you blushing after his fake confession, and he knew you were impressed. However, he was quickly pushed back into deep waters when you started to discuss PDA. You just had to mention intense making out didn’t you. Because of that one comment, he spent the entire rest of the ride basically imagining how right it would feel to hold you by your waist, one hand on the back of your neck as he kissed deep into your mouth. Your arms would wrap around his neck and shoulders, one of your fists finding purchase in his hair, and you both would be unwilling to pull away, only doing so finally out of necessity. He had to basically shut down his brain and reroute it to stop himself from thinking about it, and possibly letting his imagination go too far for comfort while in a cramped car with the subject of said thoughts. He felt how rigid his body seemed and tried extra hard to look casual.

Then came the actual interactions with other people, the people you needed to convince. He dreaded these even more after the car ride because he had now opened up a brand new barrel of monkeys and his brain was having a hard time wrangling them back in. He noticed every soft touch, every time you leaned further into him, every burning gaze you sent his way. He knows that it’s all been for show, but his mind seems to be doing a very good job at convincing him otherwise. From the extra romantic suite with the see through shower that he was still agonizing over, to the luncheon where you had looked him right in the eyes and stated that you wanted to get married and have children....with him specifically, it was all certifiably Too Much. This couple’s spa treatment might be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. He huffed a deep sigh out through his nose, briefly registering how fantastic this skin treatment was feeling. The two of you were now left alone in the room as the treatment soaked into your skin underneath the wrappings that had been applied. He allowed his eyes to rake over your body, simply observing you from an objective standpoint. How had he never noticed how beautiful you are? Occasionally in college, he had had the thought pass through his mind briefly, but this is the first time in the five years you’ve been friends that he’s been so caught up in the way your body looks, the way it moves. He quickly averted his gaze, feeling guilty after seeing how nervous you were to undress in front of him. 

That sparked him thinking all over again. Why were you so nervous about it? He was nervous too, but wasn’t expecting the uncharacteristic timidness that appeared when you realized. He hated it. He wanted to a presence that comforted you, not one that made you squirm in your own body. He finally rolled his eyes at himself for how stupid he was being allowing any of these thoughts about his best friend be entertained. Thankfully at that moment the beauticians returned to move on to the next aspect of the couple’s package.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

You were startled awake from your half slumber by Jaehyun’s hand that was reaching out from his own table to shake your shoulder. You reached up and grabbed his hand to get him to stop shaking you, letting your intertwined fingers hang loose between your tables for a few seconds before releasing them. Afterwards, your attention was grabbed by your masseuse, who was informing you of which oils she would be using to make sure you had no allergies. You were both instructed to face to the right in order to let them begin the full body massage.

Now that you had basically slept through the entire first treatment, you were wide awake and able to enjoy the massage thoroughly. You had gotten massages before, but never this nice, and you were more than positive Jaehyun had never had a massage in his life. A wave of excitement ran through you as you waited to see his very first impression of a full body massage. 

Your excitement was quickly replaced with something else and you cursed your stupid brain for putting that thought into the universe. Because the universe is always throwing things you did. not. need. your way. This time, that uncalled for cosmic gift was in fact Jaehyun getting a massage. More specifically, the sounds he made while getting a massage. You were minding your own business enjoying the feeling of the warm oils being poured onto your back when you heard it. His masseuse had begun kneading all the knots out of his back, starting with the lower back, the significant dip of his lower back that sloped up and under his towel in the most sinfully tempting way. What you heard was a low, drawn out, positively erotic sounding moan rip from his throat. Your eyes bugged out of your head and you immediately felt guilty for the heat that pooled in your lower stomach. But of course, he didn’t stop there. It was like he was completely unaware of the sounds he was making. He was releasing a nonstop string of airy sighs that almost bordered on mewling mixed in with some throaty groans and much to your horror the occasional moaning of certain choice phrases, such as ‘ohh, that’s good’ or a dragged out ‘god,’ that would undoubtedly make their way into your next R-rated dream you knew it.

You thanked whatever cosmic forces that were out there when he relaxed into making much less...pornographic noises. You yourself couldn’t help it when you let a couple small noises of pleasure escape your lips. It was a pity though because after Jaehyun’s display, you felt a little odd letting your noises out at full volume. If hearing him had made you think of him inappropriately, you didn’t want to put him in that same awkward situation, because god knows how guilty and awkward you felt about having dirty thoughts about your best friend. 

The remainder of the hour long massage came and went uneventfully, and it was time to move in to the last portion of the couple’s package. You and Jaehyun were instructed to place your robes back on and follow your beauticians to the far corner where they had two pedicure chairs set up. While your feet soaked, your wine order was taken and you were presented with a very expensive looking small bottle of wine to share between the two of you resting in a silver ice bucket. Jaehyun did the honors of pouring both of your first glasses and proposed a toast. At this point in time, you were alone in the room, as your beauticians had left to acquire some assistants to provide support for the mani-pedis. You looked over at him and saw him in a new light, he looked refreshed and relaxed and happier than you had seen him in a while.

“I want to make a toast to your happiness. It’s very important to me that you are happy and I hope I can be a part of that happiness forever.” You said your honest feelings at the moment, slightly avoiding full eye contact.

Jaehyun stared at you for a beat longer than you felt was necessary and added his own toast to yours, “And I just want to say, I also hope that you will remain an integral part of my life for the rest of my life, because I can’t imagine it without you.” He lightly clinked his wine glass against yours and took a sip. You followed suit after taking a second to mentally curse at him for being so perfect.

As if having timed your toasts perfectly, your beauticians walked in right at that moment with two other women, wearing different types of uniforms. They were probably not full beauticians yet and were doing some sort of internship here. You decided to just buff your toenails and let your fingernails be done with a french tip, while Jaehyun just got an all around buffing done. They took their time scrubbing at your heels and further massaging exfoliants into your legs, and you let yourself enjoy glass after glass of the delicious wine. Between the two of you, the whole bottle was gone before they moved on to the other foot/hand. You didn’t mind though, you were feeling a nice soft buzz that made the experience all the more pleasurable.

Jaehyun obviously finished before you seeing as he had less done to his fingernails, and walked over to the other side of the folding wall divider to change from his bath robe into his normal clothes. By the time he was dressed you were finished as well and thanked your beautician as she left the room with her assistant in tow. You found your dress on a hanger and instructed Jaehyun to turn around as you threw it back on over your head, thanking your past self for deciding not to wear anything underneath it because you felt like the peak of luxury right now. 

Walking out of the secluded dimly lit room in the back of the spa was like being woken up by a splash of ice cold water. It felt like a different universe. You made sure to move in closer to Jaehyun and decided to wrap your arm around his waist this time, while his naturally found its place on your shoulder. You walked aimlessly like that with your sides pressed together and your footsteps in time.

“How about we go grab an early dinner, darling? I’m hungry after drinking that wine,” Jaehyun suggested.

“Can we order it to the room and watch a movie while we eat?” You improved upon the idea, looking up at him expectantly.

Jaehyun huffed out a lethargic but contented laugh and said smiling, “nothing would sound better right about now.”

With that, you set your course for your room, still walking as slow as socially acceptable. When you got back, you sat down on your self claimed side of the bed, the side that faced the wall of windows, and looked through the menu while picking up the phone. You ordered two dinner entrees, one pork and vegetable stir fry with crispy noodles, and one steak dinner with asparagus and mashed potatoes. You also got a side of four-cheese bacon mac n’ cheese, and another bottle of the same wine you were given in the spa. 

Having placed your order you flopped backwards onto the bed, wanting to rest your eyes for the time it took room service to deliver. You weren’t expecting it when your head landed on a solid mass that you quickly deciphered was Jaehyun’s stomach using your sharp deduction skills. You saw that he had changed out of his tight jeans and form fitting T-shirt, into a pair of grey sweatpants and a hoodie that fit his frame just right. You turned onto your left side, keeping your head on his stomach, now facing his face which was resting mostly on your pillow, but you didn’t mind. Instinctively you began to play with the strings of his sweatshirt, pulling one side taught only to release it and let the hood of his sweatshirt bunch up. 

“What movie do you wanna watch, love? I picked last time so it’s your turn.” You asked, breaking the silent air of the room.

Jaehyun’s left hand had found its way to your right hip as this exchange took place, while his right hand once again made it’s way into your hair twisting the strands and combing through it. “I’m in the mood for something not too serious, but not a cheesy comedy,” he said quietly as his thumb rubbed light circles into your hip bone. You both were talking at a very low volume, as if your were afraid to break the film over the room’s atmosphere.

“How about that weird one? With the guy from star wars......I think it’s called Big Fish?” You suggested, trying to think of any movie that you knew would fit the mood of the room right now. 

He nodded as he said, “ooh good choice, yeah that sounds perfect.”

There was a knock on your door, indicating that the room service had arrived. After noting out loud how quick it had been, you rushed to the door to accept the food. You thanked the man who delivered your dinner once again after he finished setting all the dishes out on the coffee table and handed him a generous cash tip on his way out the door. He smiled a large genuine smile and thanked you for your kindness.

You sat down in the floor by the coffee table, hating it when you had to eat from a table that was too low from where you were sitting, and began looking for your movie of choice on the different subscription services you already owned. The movie you were thinking of, which was indeed called Big Fish, was on Amazon Prime Video and you quietly celebrated your find while simultaneously connecting your laptop to the large TV mounted on the wall.

The first, you would say third, of the movie went by while you were eating your food and drinking the wine. However, all the lights except the fire place were off, the sun was set, and your bottle of wine was once again empty, leaving you tempted in every way to crawl back into the comfortable bed and go to sleep embarrassingly early for the night.

“I’m gonna lay down for the rest of the movie,” you announced as you stood from your spot on the floor. The sudden rush of blood from your head caused you to wobble a little, making Jaehyun wary of how much of the wine you had to drink. You rolled your eyes at him because he knew it took more than that to make you sway, and made your way over to the bed. 

After a couple of minutes, you got annoyed with the fact that you couldn’t hear anything from this far and you called out to Jaehyun to turn up the volume. He did what you asked and when he sat back down he immediately got up and moved to the bed to lay next to you. You only met him with a questioning look in liu of actually asking.

“‘s too loud from that close when I turn it up.” He explained as he scooted up against the headboard and opening his arms to you, looking so inviting. You nodded in understanding and made your way into the cuddle. It was almost physically impossible for you to be on any soft surface with Jaehyun and not start cuddling. It was weird to both of you if you weren’t.

It was like that that the two of you watched the rest of the movie, Jaehyun partaking in his favorite new activity which was playing with your hair. You felt yourself slowly being taken over by sleep as the movie came to an end and were only able to stay awake long enough to even brush your teeth because Jaehyun had gotten up to set the dirtied room service plates outside the door to be collected and go though his own nightly routine.

Once you were both finished doing what you needed to do, you crawled back into the bed, only under the covers this time, and immediately pushed back up against Jaehyun’s chest. He was laying on his side facing you and you had your head tucked under his chin, curled into his chest. Your hands rested on his chest in between your two bodies and his arm wrapped comfortably around your waist as the other supported your neck from underneath serving as a pillow. Your legs were intertwined as well, with one leg up and over Jaehyun’s hip, and the other straight down, and he had his top leg over your bottom one, successfully caging your two bodies together. You fell asleep in this position within minutes, tiredly thinking how you had probably never felt this relaxed or safe before.

____________________________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITs all starting to happen!!!  
> Feelings are confusing!! But they are still happening!!  
> Idk how to really show Jaehyun’s point of view, Im just going with starting a new section/chapter with his thoughts so if that makes sense/if u like it lmk
> 
> SO.......regular huh.
> 
> Jaehyun invented that fabric...idk even know what fabric it is but he INVENTED it..


	8. The One When You Make New Friends

You woke up hot the next morning. The rising sun shining through the window like a magnifying glass on an ant had to do with it, but the main reason was the larger body engulfing yours. You knew this would wind up happening when you fell asleep in Jaehyun’s arms last night, and you didn’t care in the moment. But now, you could feel the sweat clinging to your body and felt your face heating up...totally caused by the heat in the room and having nothing to do with Jaehyun’s head resting high on your chest, his soft breaths hitting the crook of your neck. You snapped yourself out of it and proceeded to shimmy out from under him, replacing your body with a pillow.

You were glad you had woken up first because now you had time to shower before Jaehyun woke up and you would feel much less on edge about the see through wall. You collected your toiletries from your suitcase and headed to the bathroom, thinking that the first thing to get out of the way today should be unpacking your bag. After all, tomorrow was Christmas, so that means you still had an entire week until you left this resort.

The waterfall shower felt amazing on your muscles. Especially after your full body massage, the perfectly warm water loosened up your body once again. You took your time, knowing that it probably wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet, and made sure to treat yourself with your special occasions sugar scrub from lush and plenty of your citrus scented body wash, lightly humming to yourself as you went about your routine.

Jaehyun awoke not long after you got out of bed due to the lack of your body heat. His first conscious thought that morning was that one of his favorite feelings in the world was waking up pressed against you. He loved how to always let him cradle into you and never complained when he subconsciously rested most of his body weight on top of you throughout the course of the night. He finally cracked his eyes open and rubbed the sleep from them, looking around the room for you. He realized about five seconds too late that he had done exactly what you both agreed not to do, which was that he accidentally saw you through the frosted glass of the shower.

He didn’t do it in purpose, the shower was one of the first things you see when you look at the room from where he lay on the bed. He didn’t even realize what he was doing at first, forgetting that the see through wall was even a thing. He made sure to quickly avert his gaze and scroll through his phone instead, but his mind wouldn’t let him burn the image from his brain. He had seen the fuzzy outline of you stretched out under the stream of water, probably rinsing out your hair with the way your arms were lifted. The curves of your body were only accentuated by the position you were standing in and the ambiguity of it all only added to his curious attraction. He shook his head and stood his ground, actually having an internal battle with his own brain to force the image out of his head. Once again he was being the shittiest friend ever, knowing that you were worried about the privacy of the shower as well. Jesus christ why was he the worst. He just realized he actually found you attractive maybe two weeks ago and he literally couldn’t hold it together. It was honestly embarrassing. He quickly said thanks to the universe that you, by some miracle, had seemed to not notice anything out of the ordinary with him...so far

When you walked out of the bathroom now fully dressed, you saw Jaehyun laying awake, scrolling on his phone with a light pout on his lips. He looked so comfy and cute you actually cooed, grabbing his attention. “What even was that noise?” He asked.

“Nothing, you just look so cute wrapped up in the comforter like that, like a little baby,” you answered continuing to annoy your friend. He responded by rolling his eyes and lifting himself out of the bed to hop in the shower before you two went to breakfast.

He had always taken quick showers so it wasn’t long before you were on your way to the dining area to enjoy the buffet style breakfast.

The actual employees of Jaehyun’s company were required to attend a bunch of workshops and morale building exercises for almost the whole rest of the week, and although you had fun at the welcome lunch, you decided that you would opt out of anything that didn’t involve food, alcohol, or socializing. So after breakfast when Jaehyun went to his presentation, you decided to take some time and go unpack your things finally. That didn’t take long at all and with no one with you to entertain you, it quickly turned into you doing anything you could think of to pass the time. You carefully applied a full face of makeup, styled your hair for the first time in weeks, and dressed yourself up in an outfit that would be considered too fancy for every day wear. 

By that time, you were hungry enough to go for an early lunch and texted Jaehyun to see if his presentation had ended.

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
11:15  
U out yet?  
I’m bored  
and hungry

Jae baby uwu:  
11:18  
perfect timing it just ended  
meet me @ the dining area?  
Jungwoo and Jennie wanna join

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
11:20  
sounds good, be there in 5  
<3 <3

You sent the hearts for good measure after he said Jungwoo and Jennie would be there. You had to keep up appearances. It was actually mostly because you knew Jaehyun didn’t understand why you still used emoticons when emojis were a thing now. It has always been a fun argument topic throughout your friendship and he hated the ‘less than sign, three’ heart the most. You chuckled to yourself knowing he would be rolling his eyes at you right about now and headed out of your room with your room key and phone.

Eating lunch with Jungwoo and Jennie was more pleasant than sharing the table with them at the previous day’s luncheon now that there wasn’t this strange strict guideline for what you had to talk about. Also the fact that a certain someone (with a certain penchant for fondling your boyfri- fake boyfriend) was not present this time made the time spent together much more enjoyable.

The four of you talked for a while and you learned a lot about both of them. You learned about Jungwoo’s last break up with his former boyfriend that he is only now starting to move on from, which lead to discussing his ‘type.’ And you couldn’t help thinking that the perfect person to fit Jungwoo’s description happened to be your tall, loud, dashingly handsome friend who happened to also be single at the moment. You made a mental note to talk to Jaehyun later about potentially setting him and Lucas up on a blind date after you got home. You learned that Jennie was in the process of conceptualizing her own fashion line that she already had a five-year launch plan for and she showed you some incredible sketches on her phone that you marveled at for a good twenty minutes. They no doubt asked about your life as well, discussing things that hadn’t been brought up yesterday at the luncheon, like your other friends, your living situation, your plans for your future (career-wise that is). And you happily indulged their curiosity. You hadn’t made new friends in a while now that you were at your job for over a year, and you missed the feeling of getting to know new people. You of course were asked about your relationship briefly, talking about more normal aspects of a relationship, like the embarrassing and funny moments. This was a safe territory. When you were divulging this type of information, you were simply speaking as Jaehyun’s best friend, and he as yours. There was no room for dangerous feelings to slip through this time.

Before you left, after a whole two hours of talking, you turned to Jaehyun, “Oh before I go, where are the keys to the car?” You asked.

“They should be in my coat pocket, hanging in the closet I think,” he pondered, “why, you going somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go shopping while you’re in your next super important work thing,” you said with a smirk, “I still need a secret Santa present and I figured nows as good a time as any.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later tonight then. Be safe,” he said and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead effectively making you melt internally.

“Bye, love. Have fun,” you retorted, gently stroking his arm before heading back to the elevator to go back to your room with a slight head rush from the interaction.

Jaehyun watched you go longer than he probably should have, because it caused Jungwoo and Jennie to nearly squeal at him.

“Oh my god!! You two are so cute together, why did the simplest interaction seem like some sort of grand declaration of love before one of you leaves to go off to war, perhaps to never reunite again.” Jennie stated in the most dramatic way possible for this situation. 

“Seriously, it’s like you two are on your honeymoon or something. It’s actually super sweet to see two people so deeply in love, if I’m being honest,” Jungwoo continued.

Jaehyun flushed at the attention being shined on exactly how whipped he was for you, when he really shouldn’t be in the first place. He weakly told them to cut it out, still bashfully smiling, and headed to their next mandatory event feeling high on something.  
____________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cute!! Feelings!! 
> 
> I’m still not over Jaehyun in regular and now this story is making me feel 1000x more than I did before while writing it !!!


	9. The One When You Spoil Yourself

You arrived at the mall and headed straight to a jewelry store. You had Hyuck as your secret Santa, and knew that he would always appreciate some finely made accessories. Trying to decide what exactly to get was the problem because there was just too many options. He loved rings, bracelets and necklaces. You were starting to get overwhelmed when you saw a sale sign that obviously was placed there as a message to you that you should get him some earrings. Hyuck had a lot of ear piercings, and you wanted something he would love and use all the time. You recalled that he had recently just gotten a second cartilage piercing above his first on his left ear, and you came up with the perfect gift idea. You found the smallest, most delicate white gold hoops you could find. You knew that these would be perfect because he could wear them in his main lobe piercings. But (and you hoped he would prefer this option because you know it would look amazing) he could also opt to wear them both on one ear, stacked in his two cartilage piercings, and they would look so cool. 

You felt extremely satisfied with your gift idea and were about to take them to the counter when a beautiful ring caught your eye. You stopped in your tracks and leaned down to inspect it further.

“This is our most popular selection of men’s rings in the whole store. Anything specific you’re looking for?” A desk attendant who materialized out of nowhere asked.

“Oh! No, I was just looking at this one. It’s very beautiful.” You answered, sending a smile his way.

“Well these all make very special gifts for the holidays, do you have anyone in mind you could give this to?” He asked, and Jaehyun’s face popped into your mind.

“Well, yes..I suppose I do.” You answered, thinking about how it would look to all of Jaehyun’s coworkers tomorrow evening at the holiday party if you didn’t get him a gift.

“Oh how very exciting! I love seeing women buying engagement rings! It’s this whole new wave of equality that just warms my heart,” the man exclaimed as he began to take the ring you were eyeing our of the casing.

Your eyes nearly popped out of your head in surprise as you frantically waved your arms, “oh..OHH! No!! No no no no you’re misunderstanding! It’s nothing like that, no engagement from me this year no. I mean, he is special to me and I want to give him something, and I have to admit a nice thick band ring would look amazing on his hand, but! It’s not that serious hahaha..haha..ha.” You trailed off in fake laughter at the end of your rant as the desk attendant’s face went from shock, to understanding, to amusement.

“My sincerest apologies miss, I assumed you knew this case was all engagement rings,” he explained, “May I suggest something from this collection,” he smoothly transitioned, leading you to a different case full of equally as beautiful, but not as terrifying rings.

His hand expertly reached into the case, pulling a out a thick band with a titanium border and black titanium strip around the middle of it. It was amazing, and you could see Jaehyun wearing it. It fit his sense of style so perfectly.

You gasped, “wow, that’s beautiful!! It’s absolutely perfect, thank you so much.. You have a very good eye” you said while looking up at your helper.

“Well, thank you miss. I like to think I’m a good judge of character.” He said with a glint in his eye.

You ended up purchasing the earrings for Donghyuck and the ring for Jaehyun, and then finding yourself at a loss for what you should do. The entire excursion of yours had only taken up about an hour and a half of your time, and you knew Jaehyun would be occupied until after dinner time. You decided to roam the shopping center in search of some self-gifts. You justified it by telling yourself you were spoiling yourself while you had the chance.

The first store you went to was a candle shop. You loved smelling the different scents, especially the seasonal ones. You headed over to the holiday section and perused the selection, taking the time to sniff out the sugar plum, gingerbread cookies, and pine tree scents. You decided to get yourself the sugar plum and pine tree ones because you knew they would make the whole apartment smell homey and festive, and you knew Jaehyun wasn’t really a fan of those overly sweet scents anyway.

You started walking again and simply stopped at the next place you saw, which was Victoria’s Secret. You had been telling Joy for months that you needed to invest in some nice lingerie because you had plenty of your normal every day underwear, but nothing that made you feel sexy and beautiful. Today would be the day to change that, apparently, now that your had decided to officially treat yourself. You scanned the store for the lingerie section, looking for anything that jumped out at you. The first thing you ended up picking out was a sheer baby doll slip. You’d always loved how cute yet sexy they were, and decided to go with a deep maroon color, loving how it looked against your skin. 

At this point, a floor attendant came over and asked if you needed any assistance. You were about to refuse when you stopped yourself and decided to get a second opinion. “Actually, yes! I’m looking for something sexy that makes me feel confident, you know?” You informed her. 

She nodded in complete understanding and took something from the racks, “How about this? I think the corset top is perfect for feeling mature and somewhat modest, while the lace bottoms keep it just revealing enough to be super sexy,” she suggested. 

“Eeeeh,” you weren’t quite sure because you had never had legitimate lingerie before, but this seemed a little too much like what you had always seen in porn before and you weren’t sure if it was actually something you would ever wear.

“I know it seems like a lot, but trust me it’s the perfect amount, especially when you use the garter belts with some stockings, they won’t know what hit ‘em. My girlfriend loves when I wear mine.” She assured you. You had to admit, the times you’d seen them, they looked so sophisticated and maturely sexy that you were always curious to try it out.

“Well I guess it never hurts to try,” you conceded. You let her measure you and get you your perfect size. Then she took the opportunity to offer something else as well.

She began, “I see you’re already buying two items, so may I suggest picking out a third. We’re having a buy two get one free sale on all the lingerie in the store right now.” You had to give it to her, this girl knew how to sell lingerie.

“Sure,” you agreed, “What do you suggest?”

She seemed like she already knew what type of style you were going for and led you further down the wall to the one piece lace body suits. These are never items you really bothered looking at because you didn’t think they were very practical, but you figured if the lingerie was doing it’s job, you wouldn’t be wearing it for long anyway. She pulled out a beautiful lace one piece that had spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline, there were two rings of mesh that went around the ribs and the holes for the legs sat high on the hips. You literally fell in love with a piece of cloth. The lace perfectly complemented the shape of the fabric and you knew it would accentuate every curve of your body, while the cut would do wonders for making you feel sexier. 

“Damn! This sexy as hell!” You exclaimed, making the girl laugh. You couldn’t restrain yourself, this was a fine piece of lingerie. 

“I agree,” she laughed, “And I always say that every woman should have at least three sets of lingerie, one black, one white, and one red.” You nodded along with her, absorbing every word she said. “I like the maroon for the baby doll, and I think that corset should be in white just to spice it up, so you should definitely get this piece in the black lace. It’s the perfect starter lingerie set.” 

“Then I guess that’s what I’ll do,” you said, letting her get you your items and lead you over to the counter. She wrung you up and you thanked her profusely before leaving, already vowing to write a complimentary email to send to customer services.

You left Victoria’s Secret feeling the most spoiled you had ever felt, and you loved it. The next thing you could think of that you needed was a dress for the New Year’s Eve party that was being hosted at the resort. It was the only formal event the whole week and you had no idea what to bring so you said you would buy something while you were here. But first, you needed to know exactly how formal to go, so you plunged your hand into your bag feeling around for the smooth surface of your phone screen.

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
3:45  
Hey love  
exactly how formal is this formal new years party  
Like is it floor length and heels??  
Or like short dress or nice pants is okay??

Jae baby uwu:  
3:47  
...ummmm  
Maybe the second one? 

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
3:52  
Ugh ur useless  
ask Jennie  
what is she wearing??

Jae baby uwu:  
4:00  
She said go floor length  
also told me to tell you to send pics to me so she can see.

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:01  
Lmao ok  
thank Jennie for being more useful than you  
<3

With your newfound information, you headed to a department store to try and find a flattering but appropriate dress for this formal event. You browsed the dress section, looking through the racks and you had picked out a couple safe options. Dresses were always a hit or a miss for you, so you had only even bothered to look at the dresses that were your usual cut, which happened to be loose and flowing. Every formal event you can ever remember going to, you wore a flowing dress that didn’t hug your body at all. You just found it easier to move around in and more comfortable overall. This time, you wanted to try something new, just for fun. You doubted you would even get it, but you wanted to try it on all the same. 

On a nearby mannequin you saw it. This dress was perfect in every way. It fit the dress code, it fit the theme, and you absolutely loved it. It was a rich, crimson red color that fit the holiday theme, but would most definitely stand out. The thin straps were pretty simplistic and led down to a very revealing, but still modest soft v-neckline. The dress hugged close to the body all the way down until about the knee cap, where it stopped and flowed outward in a soft mermaid hemline. It wasn’t an extreme mermaid cut, which you liked, because it would make it easier to walk in. That, and the way that the hem of the dress went from high to low, stopping a little bit higher than mid-calf in the front, and going down to floor length in the back. The dress was not only elegant and plenty formal, but it was also extremely sexy. You couldn’t stop your blush when you thought about Jaehyun seeing you in this dress, and what he would think. 

That reminded you that you were requested to send pictures of the dresses you tried on to Jaehyun’s phone so Jennie could see. Reluctantly, you found the dress in your size among the racks and headed to the dressing room, making a mental note to get Jennie’s number later. 

The first few dresses you tried were your usual style, so you expected them to look nice, but you weren’t wowed by any. You sent pictures of them anyway just to get Jennie’s opinion.

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:37  
Option 1:   
[Image attached]

Jae baby uwu:  
4:40  
(๑♡3♡๑)  
aw cute contact name btw

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:41  
Ummmm hullo??

Jae baby uwu:  
4:42  
That was Jennie  
and thats actually a very good representation of the face shes making rn  
Im just gonna let her have the phone

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:45  
Lmao ok  
Option 2:  
[image attached]  
??

Jae baby uwu:  
4:47  
....wwrowww  
(♥ω♥*)

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:48  
Dam this is great for my self esteem  
How are you even typing these faces????  
Option 3:  
[image attached]

You bit your nail as you pressed send on the text with the picture of you in the red dress. It fit even better than you could have imagined, the mermaid cut making your hips seem curvier than they were, and the neck line highlighting your chest in a way that was subtle but eye catching, if you do say so yourself. You knew you looked good in it, you just wanted to get a second opinion, and knowing that it was Jennie looking right now and not Jaehyun made you feel a little less nervous.

Jae baby uwu:  
4:55  
WHAAATT AHSHAKSLSLKKSJZ  
(Y/N) YOU LOOK AMAZING  
GET THAT ONE  
(๑ÒωÓ๑)  
YOU BETTER

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:56  
Aahhhahahaha  
Omg Jennie please   
Im blushing  
Ok I’ll get this one

Jae baby uwu:  
4:57  
Yessssss wig ok  
You’ll be having fun that night IYKWIM ;))))

(y/n) my actual goddess:  
4:58  
????  
No, wym??

Jae baby uwu:  
4:59  
If the way Jaehyun was just looking at that last photo is any indication  
Im sure you’ll havee a GREAT time ;)))))))))!

Was she being serious? Was Jaehyun actually staring at a photo of You with lust in his eyes? The thought made your stomach pool with heat and flip in a familiar way that got your face burning with not only embarrassment, but arousal. You scrolled back up only to see that yes, the largest gap in between texts was after you sent that picture... Was it because he had literally taken the phone and stared for that long? You felt a certain emotion bubbling up in your chest, so in order to avoid thinking about it, you left the dressing room and went to find some shoes.

You had brought a couple different pairs of shoes with you, but nothing that would go with this dress now. It didn’t take long for you to find a simple nude open-toed heel with one thin strap to secure the ankle, and one to go over the toes. You figured you could never go wrong with nude heels, and they would match with simple and classy style of the dress as well.

After your day of shopping you felt exhausted, but you were happy with the number of things you had bought directly from your checklist. You decided to just go to the food court and eat something alone in comfortable silence before you drove the 25 minutes back to the resort considering Jaehyun will be occupied until after dinner closes anyway. You walked around, trying to decide what to get and ended up settling for a burger with fries and a soda. The quality of mall food court food admittedly wasn’t great, but you had to give it credit for always hitting the spot just right. You ate at a leisurely pace and finished your food finally after over a half hour of taking a bite and sitting back to people watch only taking another bite after a minute or so.

The drive back felt relatively quick, but you assumed it was because you had just spent so much time sitting in one place doing nothing. Once you got back, you made sure to hide the ring you had bought for Jaehyun and put the rest of your new purchases in their respective places. You hung up your dress in the closet next to Jaehyun’s finely made tailored suit and observed with great appreciation how perfectly the dress and suit looked next to each other like that. You knew that walking into the New Year’s Eve party, you were going to turn heads.

You put on some music at a low volume and laid back on the bed, humming along and just laying there for a few minutes. However, you were too restless and energized now that you were back at the resort to not be doing something. So you got up and changed into just an over sized t-shirt and underwear and put your hair in some kind of makeshift up do on the top of your head. And went into the bathroom to wash your face so you could relax with a nice face mask. After all, it was only 6:42 and it was Christmas Eve! You needed to be doing something besides going to bed early again.

So there you were, face mask applied, music blasting, and hair brush being used as a microphone so you could sing along to your playlist of specific songs that you especially liked to sing along to. You were having a great time jumping up and down on the bed performing Mr. Brightside to an imaginary audience in your room when the door opened and in walked not only Jaehyun, but Jennie and Jungwoo as well. Your voice cut off abruptly and you slowly stood up from your air guitar-ing position to meekly greet them as they looked on in shock.

“Oh hey guys....!” You began, feeling awkward, “didn’t think you were gonna be back this soon Jae...” you shot daggers at him for telling you he would be in the meeting until at least 8. You looked over to the clock it was only, oh.... 8:05. Well, you would still stand your ground even though it was you who had lost track of time.

The three of them all stated laughing the minute you tried to begin your explanation, still standing on the bed looking like a toddler caught by it’s mother with a crayon to the wall. They found it hilarious how you were clearly already doing this completely alone and were not trying to be funny in a performative way for anyone else.

Jaehyun only had one thought in his head. ‘God, I love you.’ It only vaguely shocked him that that was his mind’s reflective instinct now when seeing you do basically anything. But he knew he wasn’t in the position to simply blurt it out whenever you triggered the sentiment. He had to hide it because he knew that if you knew that your best friend was starting to think of you in that way, it would make you feel weird. He knew you would feel guilty even though he would try his best to not make you feel obligated to reciprocate those feelings. He knew that if he told you, it would make you feel self conscious about the way you acted in front of him and you would begin to censor yourself. It would be subtle at first, but eventually you would grow apart and lose what you had because of him. Because he couldn’t just get over it and accept your friendship as more than enough, which he certainly felt it was for him. So no, even though that is the first thing he thought when he walked in on you being unapologetically, goofily yourself, that isn’t the first thing he said.

The first thing he said was a very measured, “wow, you’ve never given me a private performance like that before darling, what have I been doing wrong?”

When you huffed out a laugh accompanied with an eye roll and stepped down from the king size mattress, he knew that he had successfully squashed any feelings of insecurity you had been feeling. 

“Let me go wash this mask off, then I’ll be right out,” you said, finally feeling exactly how hard the stuff on your face hardened at this point.

It took you a couple extra minutes and some extra elbow grease to finally scrub the mask off your face, but your skin still looked amazing underneath it, thanks to the skin treatment you had gotten yesterday.

When you walked back into the main room, your two room guests and Jaehyun were sitting on the furniture in front of the fire place. You walked over and promptly plopped down on the couch. You leaned naturally into Jaehyun’s side when you saw his arm already propped up on the back of the couch and his legs spread in a way that literally subconsciously drew you in. Both of your feet were tucked under you, your folded knees flopping to the right to sit on top of Jaehyun’s left thigh.

“We were just telling Jaehyun that you two should definitely come up to the roof tonight,” said Jennie. “The company has the whole rooftop reserved and there’s gonna be an open bar and jacuzzi and the whole place is rigged with those really cool outdoor space heaters so you don’t have to worry about freezing to death, how about it?”

That sounded perfect to you, and would give you an opportunity to talk with more people while also finally getting to use one of the bathing suits you packed, “I’m down if you are love, I was just thinking that we should find something new to do tonight.”

Jaehyun also was looking for a way to hang out outside of the room for a change of pace so he easily agreed as well. With that, Jungwoo and Jennie left, telling you to meet them on the roof, and that everyone would be going up there at around 9:30.  
______________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup two chapters in one day again!! I just feel like they’re too short to wait so long lmaoo 
> 
> Ok thing get SPICY next chapter get ready


	10. The One When You Say Fuck It

You chose the one piece over the bikini that you had packed because you still wanted to cover enough of your body in front of Jaehyun’s coworkers. The bathing suit you were wearing was a royal blue color and was very simple, but you thought it did a good job accentuating your body in a subtle way. The leg holes were slightly raised on your hips making it a little more revealing, and the back scooped low to offset the modest neck line. It was comfortable and it looked good, which is why you liked it so much.

Jaehyun was clad in the most generic, but nicest fitting men’s trunks you had ever seen him wear. You were sure he got them just for this trip. They were black, with white thread lining the seams, and they had these cute little pockets in them on the front, and white strings hanging in the middle to tie them tight. And the worst part of it all, they were not loose...whatsoever. You were sure that with the way these trunks hugged his thighs, they would not fall down even if they remained untied. He looked like a swimwear model and you hated it. You hated being constantly bombarded with reminders that yes, your best friend was indeed extremely hot.

You both grabbed your robes and some simple slides to head up to the roof, already excited for the rest of the night. When you got up there, it was 9:30 on the dot, but if you didn’t know better you would have assumed the party had been in full swing for hours. You spotted Jungwoo standing with the guy from your welcome lunch table....Mark..? was his name? They were both laughing with drinks in their hands, Jungwoo more reserved and inward with it, and Mark’s completely loud and outlandish. You already had a smile on your face before walking up to them after hearing that laugh.

You got reacquainted with Mark while you ordered a gin and tonic from the bartender, noticing with pleasure that the drinks were mixed strong. It had been a while since you’d had hard liquor, and you could feel it that tonight would be a drunk, if not a tipsy night for sure. As you zoomed through your first drink you found yourself opening up in the warm presence of Mark and Jungwoo. You were doubled over, laughing out loud with no self consciousness in no time, grasping onto Mark’s arm for balance. As you went to stand straight again, you almost lost your balance, causing Mark to grasp at the hand still positioned on his upper arm and step towards you.

Jaehyun had a drink in hand as well, but that didn’t stop him from stepping towards you and pulling you not so subtly towards his body by your waist. It was very out of character for him to be acting that way and when you looked at him expecting to see mirth or laughter in his eyes and were met instead with a clenched jaw and steely glare directed at Mark, you grabbed his free hand and excused yourselves from the two men, looking for some other people you had come to know. Like Jennie said, the roof was sufficiently heated with giant thermal lamps and you were starting to feel hot in your robe. You and Jaehyun found a secluded place to hang your robes until you left and walked back into the crowd. You made a point to make eye contact with Jaehyun and send him a questioning look as if to say ‘dude what the hell just happened to you?’ And were slightly comforted by his creased forehead flattening and his clenched jaw turning into a smile.

You slid your hand into Jaehyun’s in an attempt to make sure he was actually okay, and you felt him pulling you back towards the direction of the bar already. You looked over and saw that he was already finished with his drink and sent him a look that said, ‘so that’s how the nights going to go?’ and finished off the rest of your glass too. Wanting to get drunk was one thing, wanting to get sick was another. So you ordered the same drink to avoid mixing liquors and also made a mental note to slow down the intake and have Jaehyun do the same. You were not trying to be taking care of anyone on this trip.

The night progressed along with the amount of alcohol being consumed, the amount of people present, and the amount of fun people were having. You yourself were at a pretty comfortable drunk at the moment, feeling like you could have a few more before you tipped over the edge, but also not planning on even drinking that much more because you were fine at the level you were at. You talked to the people you knew, met the people you didn’t, and eventually found yourself in one of the small jacuzzis spread across the rooftop with a small handful of people.

It wasn’t an extremely small jacuzzi. It probably fit about six people seated comfortably inside. However, it felt smaller than it was because there were already seven people inside when you got there. It could maybe house eight, but with the two of you it would be way too uncomfortably full. So naturally, with the liquid courage along with the encouragement of your ‘boyfriend’s’ coworkers, you found yourself sitting on Jaehyun’s lap.....in the corner of a jacuzzi...wearing only bathing suits. You tried your hardest to not think about it, but it was kind of hard considering Jaehyun was on a whole nother level of handsy. It was like he had to have some kind of hold on you at all times. Not that you were complaining, you just were being very affected by how much you enjoyed being visibly “his” to everyone else at the party, and not to mention you were hyper-aware of the way your low cut swimsuit allowed your bare back to feel his warm, bare, muscular chest against you. All things considered you did a pretty good job at paying attention to the other people present.

Sitting with you in this full capacity jacuzzi was a lot of familiar faces. You saw Jungwoo sitting next to Mark, and Jennie was there too with Irene from your welcome lunch table, they seemed close. Then you had Baekhyun, who was ten times more loud and funny without Nancy there, probably being helped along by the glasses of alcohol he had in each of his hands. He introduced his partner, who couldn’t arrive until this afternoon, who’s name was Chanyeol. He was an extremely large man, who laughed at everything his boyfriend said and was super engaged with every person present when they talked. He made you feel like the most interesting and funny person in the world and you LOVED it. The last person present was Ten, who exactly like you remember, was composed and intimidating, but when he smiled or when someone called his attention, you would see his exterior melt away and reveal a smiley and sometimes coy and sarcastic personality. Overall, the group was a fun group to end up with and as the night was coming closer to midnight you started on what you decided would be your last drink of the night.

Somehow, and you really wondered how because seriously...you were all adults here, the group of you ended up playing truth or dare. And it wasn’t the polite kind of truth of dare that you usually initiate with people you just met. This was the raunchy, college frat party, we’re only playing this to dare people to hook up type of truth or dare. And you were loving every minute of it. Every person there was willing to make a fool of themselves and the dares were doing a good job so far at keeping everyone entertained.

You snapped out of your hazy thoughts when you heard your name being called. You looked to see Ten smiling wickedly from across the jacuzzi and you grew worried, knowing that whatever he said either way would have to do with Jaehyun, because that happens to be the funniest thing ever when you’re drunk and you’re playing truth or dare with a couple. He asked the integral question, “Truth or Dare?” And you heavily weighed your options.

“Truth,” you said, extremely unsure if that was the right choice.

Ten chuckled sadistically and there it was, the coy side of him you had been seeing slip through, “What is the kinkiest sexual act you and Jaehyun have done together?” He asked. The reaction from the rest of the group was instant, they all whooped and laughed before turning to you, curious to hear about Jaehyun’s sex life, having only ever seen him in his stuffy office persona with a dreary expression on his face due to his current boss. 

Your face heated up and you felt Jaehyun squirm under you, his fingers digging into your thighs a little tighter out of instinct. You really were caught off guard and were trying to think of a way to get yourself out of this. Sex with Jaehyun was something you had only started thinking about very recently, like yesterday recently, and you really didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by insinuating that you’ve imagined whatever kinky thing you managed to come up with, you were at an impasse.

“If you don’t want to answer, you can always take the dare...” Ten taunted you. You looked around and saw that everyone clearly thought you were too embarrassed about the answer to tell the group, and not that you in fact hadn’t done anything sexual with Jaehyun in your life but desperately wanted to. At least you were all drunk. No one would analyze you too closely.

“Okay, yeah. Dare please..” you switched, hoping this would be the less painful route. At this point there was no going back. You opted out of the truth so the dare was the only option, your still tipsy mind concluded, not even considering the fact that it’s literally just a game and you don’t really have to do anything. But once again, you were drunk enough to be easily influenced, and that was a bad time to be playing this type of game.

Ten sat up straighter with a widening smile on his lips, “I was so hoping you would say that,” he started. He had the entire jacuzzi’s undivided attention as he divulged what his evil plan had been all along. “I dare you to kiss down Jaehyun’s neck in front of all of us, starting at his mouth...” he paused “and ending...well I’ll let you decide where to end~” He concluded with a taunting lilt to his voice.

Another hit with the crowd. 

You were completely thrown for a loop at this point, barely registering what he said past the wolf whistles and hearty encouragement from the two other women present. It was a strange feeling, but you were strongly compelled to just say fuck it and go for it. Even though the circumstances were so not ideal and you might regret it tomorrow, this might be the only opportunity you would ever get to have a small taste of what you really wanted from Jaehyun.

So you turned to Jaehyun to silently ask permission with your eyes. When he almost imperceptibly nodded his head and licked his lips, eyes darting to your mouth, you realized that this would be the first time you would be kissing him like this. This was the first kiss with your best friend that was going to mean something more to you and the alcohol in your blood was helping you along, and you were ready.

You shifted your body sideways in his lap so you could properly kiss him. Your hands reached up to cup each side of his face as you looked deeply into his eyes one more time before slowly leaning your face down closer and closer to his. The last thing you saw as you let your eyes slip closed was his face inclining to meet you halfway, and his eyes fluttering shut in the same fashion as yours. The initial touch was positively electric. It was modest at first, just a closed mouth kiss with slight pressure, but as you started massaging your lips into his and turned your head to better slot your mouths together, it began to heat up. You were feeling so overwhelmed. You could feel his intense releases of breath through his nose against your face and you could feel the blood rush to your ears, blocking out the loud encouragements from your newfound friends. In the moment it was just you and him. When you teased the tip of your tongue at his lips, he opened his mouth immediately welcoming you. You could feel him everywhere, the slide of his tongue over yours, the pressure of his lips still working against your own, the feeling of this jaw muscles moving under the touch of your fingertips, and the tight, grounding grip he still had on your thigh, but also now on the flesh of your hip. He was kneading at your skin like he was trying to pull you impossibly closer. You finally broke off the breathtaking kiss only to immediately trail a line of small pecks from the corner of his lips to the juncture of his jawbone and his ear. You had always appreciated his strong jawline, and now was your chance to feel the sharp bone under the skin of your lips. You allowed yourself to suck lightly there, knowing you wouldn’t leave a mark, but needing to hear the quiet sounds he made in reaction. Since the massage you hadn’t been able to stop imagining the sweet sounds he would make in a situation exactly like this. You moved your right hand to the back of his head, using a tight grip on his hair to tilt his head back for easier access. You didn’t pause to savor the hitch in his breath as you were too busy diving back in to press wet kisses down the column of his throat, making sure to give extra attention to is adam’s apple when you heard him sigh as your lips brushed across it the first time. Then you slowly pressed kisses down to his collarbone, lightly dragging your teeth across it until you reached his shoulder, proceeding to go back and suck a light purple bruise into the skin there just because you couldn’t help it. At this point you felt more than heard a low rumble in his chest and knew it would rip out of him in a low moan if you didn’t stop, so you ran your teeth over the spot just for good measure and quickly diluted the pain with your tongue before sitting back up straight and looking at Jaehyun. His eyes were just opening back up to reveal a completely glazed over, hooded set of lust ridden eyes meeting your gaze. You held the eye contact and released his hair from the tight grip, letting your hand travel down so to lightly brush the pad of your finger over the already purple bruise. As you touched the sensitive mark, you watched Jaehyun’s eyelids flutter and his eyes almost roll back.

All this had happened so quickly that the rambunctious cheering hadn’t even subsided into awkward silence like you had thought it would by the time you were pulling away. It had been a minute at most of your night, but to you it had felt like an eternity.

You quickly snapped yourself out of it and turned back around to take your turn. You were only half invested the game at this point and dared someone to do a body shot, you don’t remember who. All you could focus on was the obvious hardness in your friend’s swimming trunks under you, that you tried your best to ignore even if all you wanted to do was grind back into it. Jaehyun took the liberty of scooting you by the hips further out on his thighs so you weren’t rubbing against him at all and leaned his forehead on your back, still breathing slightly heavier.

He didn’t know what just happened. One second you were on his lap, being adorable and just watching the game unfold, and the next you were looking at him with that intense look in your eyes. He was so swept away by your kiss that he completely forgot he was super In Public the whole time. It was like his mind was removed from his body, replaced by some lust monster. The way you took charge had him weak, and the attentiveness you showed, like how well you listened to what got him more riled up, it was all too much for him. Now he had a taste of what he had been wanting recently, and he had no idea how he was going to sleep innocently tonight. Thankfully you quickly turned your attention back to the game once you had finished and he had the time to as subtly as he could take care of his very prominent boner. You sitting on his lap still was not helping, but your body pliantly adjusted itself under his hands so you weren’t so on top of him and he appreciated it. He used this moment of solace to rest his head on your back and have an internal pep talk about how this didn’t change a thing. His internal self, that was merely the amplified drunkenness inside his brain was very hard to convince, but that minute or so was what he needed to fully recover even if it had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do in his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After your extremely eventful night, you and Jaehyun walked with Jennie, Irene and Jungwoo to the elevators. The small talk was nice and you were enjoying the company until you got off the elevator at your floor and you saw each one of them send you and Jaehyun a signal for ‘good luck,’ or ‘get it innn.’ You made a face at Irene and Jennie before the doors closed and walked the rest of the way back to yours and Jaehyun’s room with a blush dusted on your cheeks.

For some reason the atmosphere when you were finally alone wasn’t awkward at all. You didn’t know whether to attribute that to the fact that maybe it really wasn’t a big deal at all and it was just a dare and you were just overthinking it, or the amount of alcohol you both had consumed that night. Either way, you washed up for bed and snuggled up to Jaehyun in similar fashion as the night before, thinking that you were thankful that you said dare, which made you laugh to yourself. You whispered “Merry Christmas love,” before falling dead asleep with soft breaths hitting your forehead  
__________________________________________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEEYY!!! Soooooo I am completely aware that I am a trash human like how long has is been???? Three weeks??? I dont even remember!! But it was for an exciting reason.......I GOT A JOB!!!!!! I’m so happy to finally be working full time and it couldnt have come at a better tiime so im really thankful but obvi still trying to fit in the rest of my life into my new schedule lol!! 
> 
> Anyway!! Let me know what you think! Scream at me! Or about the fic! Or about Jaehyun and Jungwoo’s halloween costumes!! About whatever you want!!! 
> 
> It was spichy huh??????????????????


	11. The one when you definitely fall head over heels

The next day was quiet, being the holiday and all. You slept in until 10:30 with the assistance of last night’s alcohol consumption, and when you awoke with Jaehyun wrapped around you, it wasn’t really a hard decision to stay in bed a little longer. You let him sleep like that for almost a half hour more, just relaxing in the warmth of the sun shining through the windows, running your fingers through his hair. Your stomach growling loud enough to make Jaehyun stir in his sleep was what made the final decision for you. You reached out to the bedside table and ordered a breakfast big enough for probably about four people and finally worked up the motivation to slip out from under his warm body and head to the bathroom to freshen up before the food arrived. 

You didn’t wake him up until your food was already there, being set up on the coffee table once again. He was always so adorably lost when he first woke up, you had you gently coax him from the bed with the temptation of food before he finally got up and practically stumbled over to where you ate in companionable silence. 

The day passed without event so you and Jaehyun decided to just laze around, playing a constant stream of movies on the tv while going about your business. You didn’t intend to stay in your room all day, but that’s what seemed to happen without you even noticing the passing of time. By the time dinner rolled around you were both laying back in bed watching Trolls. You got up first to get ready for the company hosted dinner party, showering and doing your makeup in the bathroom. You still had to pick out an outfit, so you walked back into the room with your hair and body wrapped in separate towels. You heard Jaehyun hanging up with someone and with a quirk of your eyebrow and tilt of your head, silently inquired who it was. 

“That was Johnny..they’re all leaving to go out to eat together right now, I told them you were in the shower and they wanna face time later,” he informed you.

“Oh fun, yeah I’m down for face time.” You answered, excited to hear some news regarding your friends that you missed dearly. 

You went over to your dresser, digging through it to find something to wear and found a simple, but nice enough outfit that would look festive for the dinner. It was a forest green oversized turtleneck sweater that hung off your frame nicely, a mid-thigh black skirt that was stretchy, but wasn’t too tight to look inappropriate. You accessorized with sheer black tights and a pair of pointy toed heels with a thin ankle strap that pulled the whole outfit together. With that settled, you opened your underwear drawer, having forgotten about the intense lingerie you had bought that was sitting on top of everything else clearly visible. You jumped slightly in surprise, completely forgetting you had even bought those, and quickly grabbed a normal underwear and bra combo before shutting the drawer and quickly making your way back to the bathroom to change and finish doing your hair. As you looked at yourself in the full length mirror while changing into your underwear you realized that you had showered without a second thought regarding the glass shower wall. This was the first time you had been comfortable enough around Jaehyun to not even think about the possibility to him seeing you nude. And even now, you weren’t freaking out inside about it. It was more of a passive observation of your own behavior, but it did make you want to know what had changed in the last two days to make that happen.

You didn’t take long after that and when you came out with your hair fully pulled back in a high up do, with a few tendrils loose framing your face, you saw Jaehyun standing there, tucking the last bit of a nice fitting black button up shirt into the waist of his black dress pants. One thing you always noticed about Jaehyun was how well his clothes fit him. He always seemed to make sure that his pants and shirts were tailored if they weren’t a perfect fit at the time of purchase, and that slight attention to detail is what had him looking so good all the time. His legs were accentuated by the cut of his pants, making them look miles long, and his dark brown hair, carefully styled to look unstyled was up off his forehead exposing his strong eyebrows. You imperceptibly released a sigh when you saw the collar of his shirt shift to the side due to his movements and reveal the purple mark that you had left last night, reminding you of the heat you had felt inside the jacuzzi. You made sure to ask the universe what you had done to her to be deserving of this kind of torture. 

This was the first time you brought a purse with you to an event inside the resort because you needed somewhere to hide Jaehyun’s present. You were kind of nervous about giving it to him because of what the desk attendant had said about proposing. That obviously wasn’t what was going on here, but you didn’t want to cause a misunderstanding.

When you got to the dinner, you saw that it was a much less structured ordeal than you had thought. People were still dressed nicely, but it was more of an hors d’oeuvres and cocktails type of event, with tables available if you wanted to sit, but no assigned seating. After a round of drinks and some finger food with a couple of the people Jaehyun had introduced you to last night, he was called away by none other than Nancy to talk to some important looking people.

“Sorry, it’s the executive board of directors, I need to go talk to them..” he started apologetically.

“No, go ahead. I’m not worried about her at this point anyway,” you smirked, seeing the fire that had previously been present in her eyes was now gone.

As he walked away, you watched him for a second longer than necessary before excusing yourself to go find Irene and Jennie, a new cocktail in hand. You spotted them standing by a pillar on the other side of the room and smiled as you made your way over. When they saw you they waved and gave you a thumbs up motion, congratulating you as you finally stopped in front of them.

“What was that about?” You questioned, looking between them as they exchanged knowing glances.

Irene winked, “oh...you know.” She said.

When your face clearly showed that you in fact did not know, Irene sighed and conceded, “You and Jaehyun must have had a good night last night, huh?” She clarified.

“Oh! Whaat..? Noooo.” You said, eyes going wide with understanding.

“C’mon, (y/n) you can’t even lie, with what we saw in the jacuzzi....ya’ll were definitely banging after that.” Jennie rolled her eyes and shoved your shoulder playfully.

You kind of chuckled at her word choice, but merely rolled your eyes and shook your head in denial once again to hide your awkwardness around this topic.

Irene weighed in once more, “I’m being so serious right now, watching you two was like almost too much, I felt like I was intruding it was so..” she paused thinking for the word, “sensual? intimate? I was sweating and I’m not even straight.” She finished with a pat on your back and a pointed look.

You groaned and covered your face with your hands out of embarrassment. Now you had some knowledge of what other people made of your display last night. You and Jaehyun had simply ignored the topic. Neither of you brought it up because it hadn’t been sitting heavily in the room like it maybe should have. You thought you were going to wake up this morning with intense regret and shame, but you felt normal. Happy even. It had finally happened after wondering for the whole weekend what it would feel like to kiss him, and it exceeded your expectations. But you weren’t satisfied. Far from it. You only wanted more. 

The night went on much less embarrassingly for you after that. You claimed a table for you and Jaehyun and all of your friends to sit, leaving your stuff there. There was dancing and fun raffle games, and more drinking. Not as much as last night, but enough to get the spirits high. You and Jaehyun shared several slow dances throughout the night. Each dance, you were stood closer and closer together than the last, until at the end of the night you were swaying with your head tucked under his chin, your lips resting passively against his neck. His hands wrapped protectively around your lower back, making room for your hands to meet each other behind his neck, holding him close. You felt so good in that moment and let yourself forget that none of this was real. It had come to feel so natural that you even let yourself give in and place a couple soft, barely-there kisses to the expanse of Jaehyun’s neck every so often just because you wanted to feel his skin. 

The joint DJ for the night pulled you back to reality with a call for Nancy to come to the mic and deliver a message. She was the position above Jaehyun at the company he worked at and the only thing in between him and the executive board, which was his ultimate goal. That was one of the reasons Jaehyun had never reported her behavior. If he had, he didn’t know who would fill her shoes and doubted it would be him after being the one to file the complaint. 

Nancy took the microphone and waited for the polite applause to subside before beginning in her nasally voice, “It has been an honor to organize this event for all of you to enjoy, are you having a good time?” She asked and smiled at the loud applause to answer her question. “I wanted to take this opportunity, with everyone here, to truly express how much I enjoy this profession, how much I enjoy working at this company, and how much I enjoy having you all as my coworkers.”

Jaehyun looked on, fidgeting nervously in his spot. He had heard talk that this may be happening at the holiday event, but his suspicions were not confirmed until he had been pulled aside earlier by the board of directors themselves. He was being promoted. In public. Right now. In mere seconds, Nancy would announce her retirement and the board’s decision for her replacement. That person just so happened to be him. He looked down at you briefly. Seeing you like this, still watching this woman who you hated talk with the utmost respect and attention made his heart swell with fondness and pride and he couldn’t wait to see how your face lit up when you heard his name being announced.

He tuned back in to Nancy as she continued, “With that all being said, it is unfortunately time for my journey with you all to come to an end.” A chorus of gasps filled the room. “I came into my retirement this year, and have been discussing with the board who will be moved up to be my replacement. I’ll be back for a brief period once the new year begins to train this person, but I really don’t think it will be much needed. They are an extremely competent and hardworking individual, with a deep understanding of the industry. Please, everyone join me to congratulate Jaehyun Jung!” She finished with a flourish of her hand in your direction.

You jumped in surprise when you heard his name being called out. It was the promotion he had been working towards since he first started working at this company. This was the promotion he had endured Nancy for. And now, not only would Nancy be gone, but he would be moving up in the company too. You were so incredibly proud of him and you looked over to see his face lit up with a smile, and his eyes trained on you. You forgot yourself for a moment and surged forward to kiss him. A kiss which he immediately returned, leaning forward over your body and hugging you in the process, both of you smiling into each other.

He reluctantly let go of your had as he made his way to the stage to make a brief thank you speech. You could honestly not remember what it was he said if your life depended on it, but you knew the feeling of pride in your chest, and the jolts of energy that ran through you each time his eyes locked onto yours during his speech. The speeches ended, but the energy in the room remained heightened, and it was at this time the MC announced that if anyone had presents to give now would be the time. You smiled as Jaehyun made his way to your table with a look on his face that you were trying hard to decipher. He beat you to it though when he pulled out a delicate jewelry box from his pants pocket. You made shocked eye contact with him causing him to only smile wider and open the box. 

You once again marveled at how well he knew you. Laying delicately on the black velvet was the thinnest white gold chain you had ever seen with a single pendant hanging from it in the vague shape of a raindrop encrusted with a small diamond. You were rendered speechless and merely looked at him with a contented smile before you turned around. Jaehyun understood and took the necklace out of the box to put it around your neck. You felt him reach around one side of you to pull the chain into position, lightly brushing his fingertips on your neck, making you shiver. After he clasped the chain he pressed a light kiss to the nape of your neck and let the necklace fall naturally. It rested perfectly on your clavicle and you selfishly hid it away under your large turtleneck after showing him, wanting him to be the only person to see it for the time being.

Before he could say anything you turned around to grab your purse, reaching in and pulling out a black velvet box of your own. The look on Jaehyun’s face was priceless, clearly not expecting you to have gotten him anything in return. It made you laugh, the sound being the first thing to break your silent exchanges since he got promoted several minutes ago. You opened the box to reveal the ring you bought him keeping your eyes trained on his face. You were anxious to see if he liked it or not and released a deep breath you didn’t know you were holding as he smiled open-mouthed with his eyebrows raised and eyes wide, his dimples on full display. You took the ring out of the box and accepted his right hand as he held it out to you. The ring fit perfectly on his ring finger and you took in the sight of the thick band on his long slender finger with delight. You knew it would suit him.

He was looking at you with a smile plastered on his face and a deeper emotion swirling behind his eyes that you finally allowed yourself to start reading into. You returned the sentiment with your own gaze as he said quietly, “Thank you, so much.” And leaned down to kiss you once more, his hands coming up to hold you in place by your cheeks. You held tightly onto his wrists, not wanting him to let go as you pressed your foreheads together in a moment of simply enjoying each other’s company. You rejoined the party with a newfound lightness that you didn’t know you had been carrying and spent the rest of the night unconsciously glued to Jaehyun’s side, enjoying hearing all the congratulations and compliments thrown his way.

Your night winded down peacefully, with contented silence shared between the two of you and you fell asleep tangled together once again, feeling a different weight settle in your heart this time. But that was for future you to figure out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW I really am so bad at updating like why did I even do this to myself..... anyway im like editing an basically rewriting some of these chapters as I go bc I literally wrote most of this story in one sitting when I was still unemployed and going STIR CRAZY
> 
> So yeah its taking a while and I apologize but its gonna turn ou better in the long run >:)))
> 
> Please leabe any thought s in the comments!!! I love getting them it means a lot <3333 thank you!!!


	12. The one when hard decisions are made

Your time was pleasantly uneventful for the next few days, coming and going without much regard for what time it was or what day it was, even. You and Jaehyun spent most of your time together, but when you weren’t with him you were hanging out with Jennie, Irene and Jungwoo. They had come to be pretty good friends of yours during this week and for that you were thankful. You mostly stayed inside by the fire place in your room, or at the indoor pool. Sometimes you would also go up to the roof top where you and Jaehyun shared your intense public display of affection those short few days ago. However, several times this week you felt like doing more of the outdoor activities available to you. You tried your hand in skiing and snowboarding, not particularly liking or excelling at either. Your favorite activity was the snowy trail hike. It was extremely challenging, but worth it for the amazing scenery and beautiful view at the top of the trails.

You had a pretty decent next couple of days, but it was already Saturday when you realized you never winded up talking to your friends on Christmas. It had been an entire week with no contact which had only happened maybe a handful of times in the last five years. New Years was on Monday, so you Facetimed Joy while Jaehyun was out of the resort at some sort of training thing for his promotion because you wanted to show her your dress for the party tomorrow night while you caught each other up on what had happened during the week. 

“oow oooooowwwww!” she hooted, “that is one sexy dress miss, who exactly are you trying to impress?” She got really close to the camera and raised her eyebrow at you.

“Oh my god, please..” you sighed, “You know it’s just for me to try something new.” You noted something else, which you didn’t hesitate to add, “also, Jaehyun had something pretty exciting happen this week that I’m sure will make us a hot button topic for the night so I wanna look extra good.”

“Cryptic much? What happened?” She tried to dig deeper.

“I would tell you but it’s kind of important and I think he’ll probably wanna do it himself when we get back on Tuesday.” You informed your second closest friend.

It felt so nice to talk with Joy. There were just things that you couldn’t discuss with Jaehyun and had always gone to Joy for, and her with you. She is probably tied as your best friend with Jaehyun, just in different capacities. Except now, you didn’t know how to feel about this “different capacity” you found yourself in with Jaehyun. You contemplated bringing it up to Joy but you didn’t know if it would be weird for her to think about you two like that together, so you held your tongue.

“Anyway, how are things going there with Jae?” She asked, as if reading your mind.

“They’re good, it’s been a really nice week...” you lamely stated. You knew she was sure she was going to get funny anecdotes of the two of you being super awkward when you had to kiss in public or something, but you didn’t have any so instead she got this nervous energy radiating through the phone’s camera. 

“What the hell? What is that tone about?” She called you out immediately, “you have to tell me, it’s reparations for not telling me about this scheme from the beginning”

Man she really knew how to get you to talk.

“Ugh fine!” You caved, “I just feel kind of stupid and torn right now because it’s so easy to forget that we’re not actually together while we’re here alone doing everything...well not everything...a real couple would do! And I can’t tell if I actually want this or if I’m falling for the feeling of not being lonely anymore, you know??”

“W-“ you cut her off

“And he really seems to feel the same way just from the vibe I’m getting but it could so easily be fake for this stupid scheme! And not to mention IM SO SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED! I keep thinking about him in ..... ways and then I feel weird and guilty because he’s my best friend...isn’t that wrong?? I just really don’t know what to do and now we’re leaving in two days and I don’t even think this stupid scheme will continue on after that and I don’t know if I can handle going back to the way we were before!” You finally got your nagging thoughts out with a huge huff of breath.

You hadn’t realized that the heavy weight on your chest that had been present all week was due to this stress until it was finally out in the open. You looked at Joy through the poor connection of your camera and waited for her to say something ...anything. Was she upset that you hadn’t told her before now? Was she weirded out by her two best friends and roommates getting a little too close for her comfort? Did she think you were diving head first into this without thinking about the actual repercussions it could have on not only you and Jaehyun, but all six of you. If you and Jaehyun grew apart the whole dynamic would change. You two were the glue, you always had been. How would you all come back from it if you and him couldn’t hang out anymore the same way you always had. There’s were so many concerns that she could be mulling over right about now and so you sat there holding your breath.

“I.....” she started quietly, “fuckING KNEW IT!” She finished practically yelling at the end.

You were taken off guard by that type of response, once again your friend showing you that you had to have more trust in her. 

“What do you mean you ‘knew it’?” You asked incredulously.

“I mean, that the moment you two said you were fake dating I knew for a fact one of you was gonna fall...hard” she sat back in her seat. “It just makes so much sense. You’ve always been different, more than just best friends I just don’t think you ever thought that.” She finished.

“No! We were never like this!” You denied, “everything seems so much more...intimate and meaningful here, it’s making my head spin. I’ve never felt like this with him before now” it made you feel weird to say it, causing you to blush hard.

“That’s because you’ve never had all the conditions lined up perfectly like this for you to finally realize it.” Joy said, “Hell, we all realized it whole ass years ago, and when you said you two were going away together we literally immediately made a separate group chat that we’ve been using all week to try and guess how far you’ve gone” 

“What!? I do not appreciate the insinuation there.” you said a little agitated. 

“Well I can’t tell you I feel bad about it without lying to you and you know I don’t lie.” She said, true to her word, not sounding the least bit sorry. “So on a more serious note, what are you going to do about it?” She asked the question that you didn’t have the answer to.

“I don’t know!” You whined at her, “I could so easily take it to the next level while we’re still here but then I would be nervous for how we would be effected once we’re back at home...” you talked through your options, “or I could create some distance for now to calm myself down and wait until we’re home to see how he acts once we’re not obligated to be a couple anymore?” At this point you were biting your nails and spacing out, starting to actually worry that you had already gone too far for your friendship to be the same again.

“Okay, (y/n) relax. I can see you starting to spiral. Take some deep breaths,” she said. “I think it’s up to you to make that call. Only you are seeing how he’s acting so I can’t really make a judgement for you, but I think either way it will be okay. That’s the most important thing to remember here. Jaehyun is still and always will be your best friend. No matter how bad you think it could go, you two will be able to work through it. You’ve been through worse and come through stronger.” 

You seriously could have cried from the way Joy always seemed to immediately calm you down. She has a loud and rambunctious personality, and sometimes it seems like she doesn’t really take anything seriously, but whenever you really needed her she was there as one of your strongest support pillars.

You took one last deep breath and smiled, thanking her sincerely. You really needed that talk, even if it was just to put all your thoughts out there so they weren’t all swarming in your mind. 

Once she saw that you were feeling better she expertly changed the subject, “now let me see his lingerie you said you bought..” she said in a suggestive tone, wiggling her eyebrows. 

After showing her your purchases and talking for a little longer about random topics, just enjoying hearing each other’s voices again, you decided to hang up so you could meet Jennie and Irene for an early dinner before Jaehyun was back.

She reiterated how much she loved you and left you with one last thing; strictly said to tease you, “oh and (y/n)! Whatever decision you make with Jae, make sure you wear that white lingerie tomorrow night just in case!” She wiggles her eyebrows once more and cackled as she hung up on you right as you began to yell. You went about your business with a clearer mind than you’d had all week and appreciated your other best friend for taking your problems and not dismissing them, but putting them into perspective for you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jaehyun was out at a day long convention with the executive board and Nancy, being introduced to his new position by observing this leadership conference. He was ecstatic to be there, knowing that this was the first step in his brand new journey for the new year. He also noted with great relief that Nancy had not bothered him once this week after she announced her retirement. He couldn’t help but think it was due to you publicly pointing out how inappropriately older than him she was. She had been planning her retirement for God’s sake and she still didn’t have any shame in aggressively coming on to him until you had done that on his behalf. He really appreciated how many times over the past two and half months you had stepped in front of him, willing to take the bullet so that he could remain secure in his position. 

During an hour long break he was given after the scheduled lunch time he decided to find a private area to sit down and FaceTime Johnny. 

“Hey man what’s good!?” Johnny answered from his apartment, seemingly alone. 

“Hey dude, nothing much, I’m at some conference and we have an hour right now, what are you up to?” He asked

“Nothing at all actually. I’m home alone right now just chillin” he said, “what’s been going on? We never ended up calling you guys on Monday.” Johnny asked.

“It’s been super chill, just like a couple work things here and there but for the most part me and (y/n) are just hanging out. We’ve watched a lot of movies but we also went like hiking and skiing and shit so it’s been fun.” He filled his friend in, way less elaborately than you had with Joy. 

“Nice, I looked up the place and it looks sick dude I’m jealous,” Johnny said, “but anyway how’s the whole fake dating thing going? You guys fallen in real love yet?” He asked, getting right to his real topic of interest.

“What the hell? Dude, no. It’s all just pretend anyway so it’s not like anything would be able to happen.”

Johnny’s interest was effectively peaked, “okay, but it seems like you want something to happen? Am I wrong?” He dug.

“no! I mean yes! well...” he sighed deep, “fuck ugh, Not exactly....” Jaehyun trailed off, not particularly wanting to have this discussion.

“Soo....” he prompted him to continue his train of thought.

“It’s not like I don’t want anything to happen, it’s more like I don’t think she does.” He finally admitted, “and I’m honestly terrified of fucking something up that we won’t be able to get over once we’re home.” Wow it felt good to finally get that off his chest.

“Why do you think she doesn’t want anything to happen? I mean, she did agree to this in the first place,” he tried reasoning with Jaehyun.

“Yeah she did, because she’s a good friend and I told her she would at most probably need to hold my hand in my office before we go out to lunch like usual,” Jaehyun was frustrated at this point, “she never signed up for this and I feel like I’ve pushed her into something she’s not comfortable with, especially with how this week has gone.”

“Oh? Saucy...what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I mean we’ve been literally all over each other...there’s just been so many times that we’ve had to do things that I know she wouldn’t want to do just because we’ve been in front of people we need to fool, and it’s honestly killing me. It’s so easy to pretend it’s not fake here..” he explained.

“Listen dude, I really feel for you, but I think there’s something to be said for her going to these lengths for this,” Johnny tried his hand at being supportive. “If these things have happened for you then she’s felt them too. You have to put yourself in her shoes too, see what things she’s done that weren’t actually necessary and see if that makes you think differently.” He finished. 

Jaehyun thought over that sentence over and over, almost forgetting he was even on FaceTime until Johnny called back his attention with a cough.

“Sorry bro, but yeah you’re right. I think I know what I’m gonna do, thanks. I gotta go, see you on Tuesday” Jaehyun said before hanging up.

He really didn’t have to go right then, but he wanted some time to be alone with his thoughts as well and figure out what his course of action would be. He first took the time to think about his friend and appreciate how supportive he always was. Jaehyun would count Johnny as his best friend if he was asked, he was equal to you in terms of closeness, but it was just in a very different way. He would go to you two with very different needs and questions depending on what he wanted to get out of it. 

That brought his train of thought back to you, and more specifically, what he was going to do about you. So far this week, there had definitely been something electric between you. There was a rod of tension there, just waiting to snap. He was sure that if he made some sort of move, the two of you would cross a very serious line before you got home. A line that he wanted to be 100% certain of your feelings before he crossed. That led him to his decision. For the rest of the weekend, until you went home on Monday, he would try to keep his distance and hold himself back a little bit. Maybe if he held himself back from initiating most of your physical contact, he would be able to tell if you were acting differently towards him or not. He needed to do this before you got home. Nancy was retiring and that meant there was no need for you two to continue on with your scheme. He of course wanted you to, making it real this time, but he wasn’t going to put you in a position where you felt like it was your only option. 

He would pull back, giving you a chance to show your true feelings and show a clear sign of initiating intimacy with him if you actually wanted this. If not, he would just break it off under the ruse of not needing to fool Nancy anymore and get over his unreciprocated feelings in private. Maybe he would need the help of Johnny with that one now that he actually knew about what Jaehyun felt for you. Regardless, that was the least painful path for you, which is what he wanted. He would hate to make you feel guilty or responsible when it’s him who has been projecting his real feelings into your fake relationship, making it harder for him to treat you how he normally would. He felt so shitty for basically taking your best friend away from you, he shouldn’t have done that. You definitely wanted a vacation with your best friend when you agreed to come, not a week with a guy who was affectionate with you when you had no choice but to act like you liked it. Ugh, he felt so disgusted with himself. 

With his mood officially soured, he made his way back to his observation hours for the remaining half the day. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Jaehyun returned that night, you were still out with Jennie and Irene and he had one unseen text from you.

(Y/n) my actual goddess:  
7:03  
Hey love, I’m going out with the girls tonight! Don’t wait up <3

Jae baby uwu:  
7:45  
Where u going?   
I can meet up w u?

(Y/n) my actual goddess:  
7:51  
Nope! No boys allowed   
Have fun w jungwoo and mark or something  
Don’t try to follow us >:((!!!!   
.............  
;-* <3 <3

He couldn’t help but laugh at the way you were texting, definitely slightly tipsy, thinking of how much your cuteness made him want to burst from the inside. But alas, he took your suggestion and texted Mark and Jungwoo to see if they wanted to hang out. 

The three of them went to the roof and basically hung out like they were teenagers again. They drank cheap beers and threw things they found off the roof as far as they could, and they talked about a bunch of existential shit that you only think about that one semester of college where everyone thinks they want to change their major to philosophy. But they talked about it all the same. He was having a really good time with these new friends and hoped that they would continue seeing each other as more than coworkers once they were all home. 

In the meantime, you Jennie and Irene had found a bar in the nearest town and taken a Lyft there. You were planning on getting pleasantly drunk and letting yourself go with your new friends. You strolled into the bar feeling like the hot new things in town, which you probably were, and immediately started up the dance floor before you even got drinks in your hands. Once a good amount of people were up and dancing you all took your leave and sat at the bar, ready to order. Before you even had a chance to think about what you wanted, three cocktails were placed in front of you by the bartender. “Courtesy of that gentleman over there,” she said, pointing to your right. 

The three of you turned your heads in unison and saw a man sitting there who looked....expensive to say the least. You were thankful for the drink truly so you nodded towards him, but turned away quickly to stop from having to look in his piercing eyes. Once you finished your respective drinks, you declined his offer for a second round, not wanting to take advantage of his generosity and bought yourselves some beers so you could be mobile enough to bring your drinks onto the dance floor. The night was passing by so quickly and you, Jennie and Irene were having the best time. Before you knew it, you were all pretty much plastered and sitting in a booth talking about all the things your brains were telling you to shut up about. For you, obviously it ended up being about Jaehyun, but you thankfully didn’t give anything away. All you told them was that you were afraid he would stop being so affectionate once you weren’t on vacation anymore, which they immediately nodded in understanding and tried their best to form a coherent sentence to support you with.

It was kind of nice, hearing their worries as well. Hearing Jennie complain about having trouble finding models for her clothing line, referencing a certain front desk attendant named Lisa with “mile long legs” and the perfect “sexy chic” look she was going for. It seemed like it had to do with more than just her rejecting Jennie’s offer to be a model, but they didn’t go there. And Irene, for the first time, expressed some sort of sexual frustration and loneliness. She said she hadn’t met a girl that made her feel anything in such a long time that she was starting to think there was something wrong with her. She wanted someone to balance out all her more introverted qualities and make her see things differently. You drunkenly promised her you would set her up on a date with who you thought was the perfect person once you were all back in the city. If that person happened to be your best friend who is also your proudly bisexual roommate then you didn’t feel the need to mention it. 

Your night extended far past the stroke of midnight and by the time you were getting back to the resort, you were sure Jaehyun would be sleeping already after his long day. You of course were right. When you quietly snuck into the room at 1:45, you heard his heavy, steady breaths indicating he was deep asleep at this point. You quickly went to the bathroom and went though your nightly routine, changing into a T-shirt and underwear to sleep in, and crawled into bed. You were very careful getting into bed because Jaehyun had already done his usual deep sleep move of flopping onto his stomach, but you still wanted to cuddle so you could fall asleep as well. You were usually already under him when you both fell asleep. So, you decided to flop on top of him for a change and scooted down so that your cheek could rest on his shoulder blade, your body half draped over him so you could wrap your left arm securely around his torso and hook your left leg over his right one which had been spread so wide it was directly underneath where your body lies. You took no time at all to fall deep asleep that night, forgetting all of your worries that you had voiced at the bar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Your morning the next day got off to a late start thanks to your escapades the night before. Of course, late to you was only 10:30. You got out of bed, Jaehyun already up and dressed, and waddled your way into the bathroom to shower. You had to start getting ready for the New Years party probably around 6 so you could be ready by 8:30, when it started. So you just pondered over what to do today to fill the time. There was obviously no work required events for Jaehyun to go to, so you figured you would just brain storm with him after. You needed to make sure you were starting to keep your distance though. Maybe to ensure there would be no tension you could invite Irene and Jennie over....maybe Jungwoo and Mark too so it seemed less intentional. You weren’t sure how you were going to pull this off after having been all over Jaehyun for the whole week. It would be extra hard to not act that way now that you would be consciously trying not to. 

You got out of the shower and walked into the room, poised to ask Jaehyun what he wanted to do to begin your day. However, when you looked around the room was empty. You felt very confused and, honestly....lonely. You didn’t realize you had become so clingy and you hit your head telling yourself to snap out of it. It was then that you saw a note folded up on the table. 

Went out to buy bagels from a really good place I heard about in town. Be back soon xoxo

You looked at the note fondly and felt guilty for the change in your behavior that was about to take place once he got back. It would definitely be a little confusing to him to suddenly feel this distance, but it needed to be done. At least until after the trip. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jaehyun woke up with an unfamiliar weight on top of him. He was so used to waking up curled into you, but he never realized that you were always the big spoon. He didn’t dislike the feeling. In fact, he probably liked it too much, having to get up and shower before you woke up to make himself clear his mind of all the fond thoughts he was having. Once he was showered and dressed, putting the last touches on his outfit, you woke up and started to shuffle over to the bathroom. You looked so tired and had barely opened your eyes. Your hair was a mess and your mouth was in a slight pout to pair with the confusion on your face. You were so cute he was literally going to die. So he did the only thing he could think of when he heard the shower running. He left. He had heard about some supposedly world class bagel place and decided to go find it so he could give himself time to work up the will power to put some distance in between the two of you. He still made sure to leave you a note so you weren’t worried though. 

When he came back from the bagel place a little bit after 11, you were pretty much dying of boredom. You perked up when he entered and ushered him over to sit next to you on the couch. You couldn’t help but notice that he left more space than usual between your bodies. You ate all the different selections of bagels and spreads he got and drank the coffee, roasted to perfection. And chatted idly about what your day and night would consist of. You wanted to suggest inviting your friends over before he suggested a more private activity that you knew you would agree to because you have no will power when it come to him, even though you knew it would not be good for your plan. He agreed and by 12:30, your room was full with the six of you spread out between the bed and the seating area. You Irene and Jennie were the ones cuddling in the bed and Mark and Jungwoo were entangled on the couch, leaving Jaehyun curled up on the arm chair, still looking as comfortable as anyone could be. The six of you, funny you thought that you always seemed to find a group of six friends, decided on some action movie and had fun mocking the more stupid parts throughout the viewing. After the movie it was time for a late lunch, so you all ordered room service to your room and let some Netflix original show run on auto play while you all ate in a circle around the coffee table, some on the seats and some on the floor. 

Just like that, your day went by without you really having to spend any time being intimate with Jaehyun and you were pleasantly surprised. You both seemed to be in a different state of mind today, for some reason you weren’t inseparable anymore. You bid your friends goodbye and decided to start to slowly get ready for the party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERES ANOTHER CHAPTER!!!! like I just really cannot update regularly huh? let me know what you think! (y/n) and jaehyun are pretty dumb huh? its ok theyre just confused idiots....
> 
> leave a comment / kudos if you want!!!


	13. The one that’s super emo and dramatic

Jaehyun noticed you acting more distant during the course of the day and he had to remind himself that this was exactly what he wanted. His whole plan was to back off and let you initiate whatever contact you wanted to see if you actually wanted any at all. So why was he feeling petulant when you decided to cuddle with Jennie and Irene and not curl up on his lap. He really had to stop himself from having feelings he had no right to have.

When everyone finally left, he decided to lay down while you started getting ready, knowing that you would take way longer than him. He closed his eyes while you went over to start digging in your drawers and heard you shut the bathroom door behind you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you looked over and saw Jaehyun with his eyes closed you quickly grabbed the white corset and underwear set and rushed over to the bathroom. Joy definitely got into you head yesterday, so you decided to wear it under your dress just in case. Just in case what...you didn’t know, but still. You had never worn one of these before and you needed to figure it out before doing hair or makeup in case you started sweating. You got the corset on with only a little bit of difficulty after probably 15 minutes, the hardest part to figure out was probably the thigh garters. You were wearing open toed shoes so you had bought these lace thigh bandettes to clip the garters to and hold them in place. Once you finished you decided to cleanse your face and prime it so you could get started on your makeup.

You decided to do a classy and glowy looking face. Your foundation light, but hydrating. You had a nice sheen of highlight high on your cheekbones, eyebrow bone, the bridge of your nose and your upper lip. This small touch accentuated all the best angles of your face. You didn’t want to do too much on your eyes considering your dress was so vibrant already, so you merely did a sweep of nude and natural toned eyeshadows across your lid as a base, and one thin line of eyeliner that came out into a simple wing. Then you filled in your brows, not too extreme, but enough to define the shape, and put heavy mascara on your lashes. The finished look on your eyes turned out amazing. It made your eyes look huge and made them a focal point of your face along with your lips, which you decided to paint the exact shade of the red of your dress. You lined your lips and used a red lip stain on top of the regular lipstick to fill in the space. The stain dried, and you knew this was going to hold all night, but you still decided to bring it with you for any touch ups you would need.

With your makeup finally complete after applying your bronzer and setting spray, you got started on your hair. The dress was simple and really didn’t have any embellishments that needed to be shown off, so it really didn’t matter if your hair was up or down. However, you had always liked having your hair up rather than down when it came to formal events because then you had more control over how well the style held all night. You decided to pull your hair high up off your neck in a French twist. You made it look loose and flowing once the foundation was set by pulling a section in the front and some side tendrils down, twisting them and styling them so they fell perfectly and seemed to naturally flow back into the rest of your hair. After what felt like hundreds of bobby-pins and almost a whole can of hairspray, you were very satisfied with the final product. You looked classy while also looking extremely sexy and effortless. 

You checked your phone and saw that it was now about 7:30. You didn’t want to be in your dress waiting for a whole hour, so you decided to sit in your bathrobe and relax for the time being. You looked around however to see no bathrobe in sight. How had you not realized that you didn’t bring anything in the bathroom with you to wear over this ridiculous lingerie? You thought back to where you had left your bathrobe, if it was close enough to the bathroom door you could just reach out and grab it, but of course it was probably hung up in the closet or over the back of one of the arm chairs. You thought, of course, and poked your head out to call to Jaehyun. 

“Jae! Can you bring me my bathrobe? I don’t know where it is....maybe on the chair?” You yelled out and retreated back into the bathroom. 

You heard him shuffle around and then a quick knock on the door. You opened the door just enough to reach your hand out and grab the robe. Once you were finally out of the bathroom you looked at Jaehyun, taking note of his expertly styled hair and carefully picked out jewelry. He was also waiting to put on his suit, not wanting to be ready so early. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you walked out of the bathroom still finishing the knot on your bathrobe, Jaehyun was awestruck. He took in your appearance, from your beautiful hair that was styled in such a luxurious looking up do, he wondered how you managed to do that all by yourself while also chasing away images of him just running his hands through your hair ruining your work, and literally lost his ability to breath when you slowly looked up from your hands to make eye contact. Your eyes were so alluring and the way you had done your makeup made you look otherworldly, he wondered how he got so lucky as to be able to walk into this party with you on his arm. He realized how lucky he was to have you in his life at all, and he didn’t care if you would never be more than friends, because to him it really was enough to just be able to be close to you in any way. He found some semblance of peace in his realization and was able to come back to reality making sure to compliment you.

“Wow (y/n), you look absolutely stunning,” Jaehyun said, sounding so genuine you were taken aback. 

“I’m not even finished yet,” you joked to try to cover up how affected you were. 

“Well then I have more to look forward to,” was all he said as he turned around to sit back down and resume his TV binge. 

You had no response for that so you just walked over and sat on the other side of the couch, stretching out your legs to rest your feet in his lap. The two of you sat like that for a good while, watching almost two episodes of whatever random show was on before you had to get up and actually get dressed for this party. 

When you finally stood up and grabbed your dress bag and shoes out of the closet, you were more excited than before to see what your whole outfit would look like once all together. You quickly slipped into the bathroom to give both of you privacy to change. You were sure you would take a little longer anyway. 

You stepped into the dress and slipped it up over your hips. Once you finally had the straps on and had awkwardly reached to zipper up the back, you took in your appearance. You loved how the dress looked in the fitting room, but now with the corset on underneath, your figure was even more defined and your bust was slightly more accentuated than before. You gave yourself a few minutes to just take in your appearance before slipping your shoes on your feet, glad that they perfectly complimented the dress like you thought they would. Your last touches were the jewelry you had picked out pretty much the day you got the dress. You were wearing a couple thin delicate rings on each of your hands that perfectly matched the hanging diamond earrings you wore. The final accessory was the necklace Jaehyun had bought you for Christmas. It sat perfectly in your clavicle and was the perfect touch to bring the entire ensemble together. Being completely satisfied you have yourself one last look over and walked back out into the main room. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He looked up as he heard the door opened, feeling nervous for some reason. What he saw completely floored him. The red dress he had seen in the photo looked even better in person, and perfectly matched your lips, drawing his attention back and forth, not knowing where to look. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Your body looked amazing of course, but the thing he kept looking at was the necklace he had bought you, sitting prettily on your neck. He felt immense pride full him as he noted how beautiful the necklace looked on you and how perfectly it went with your outfit for the night. He knew that the two of you, well mostly you, would be the talk of the entire company tonight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You felt a sense of curiosity and you couldn’t stop yourself from watching Jaehyun’s eyes raking over your body. Normally, if it was anyone else, you would feel uncomfortable with the look in his eyes, but all you could think was how bad you wanted him to act on whatever urges he was feeling. As he was clearly still taking in your appearance you decided to take this time to eye him as well. He was fully dressed in his, of course, perfectly tailored suit. You loved nothing more than seeing him dressed up because you got to see all of your favorite parts of him shown off. His pants were fit to show off how long his legs were, and they looked miles long. And his suit jacket sat perfectly on his broad shoulders while being fitted to his torso as well, showing how slim his waist was in comparison. You swooned taking in his figure. You especially loved his bow tie. It was a classic black bow tie against the crispest white dress shirt, looking much more classy than a regular tie. His shoes were shiny and black, seemingly a brand new purchase for this event specifically. His hair was at an all new level of sexy. It was pushed back like how it usually was when he had a formal event to go to, but this time it wasn’t meant to look “unstyled” and loose, it was clearly swept back and was clearly gelled in place, he looked so sleek and expensive you were practically drooling. 

Once you figured you had done enough ogling for the time being, you cleared your throat and suggested that you go before you were late. Jaehyun stuttered his agreement and your previous thought of him being intimidating and expensive-looking was thrown out the window. You had your few belongings like your phone and you lipstick for touch ups, in a small clutch bag. With the bag in one hand and your other looped through Jaehyun’s arm you both made your way to the elevator, a weight settling over you with the knowledge that this would be your last night playing this role. Once you left tomorrow your charade would be up, and you and Jaehyun would go back to being friends like normal. You couldn’t help but feel like this was the end of something great before it had even gotten the chance to begin. That this would not only be hard for you, but would also mark a drastic change in your dynamic from now on. You walked on in silence, unwillingly letting the feeling weigh you down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The party was, as per usual, beautifully decorated and full of joyous music and people. You walked into the convention hall and could actually feel the burning gases of dozens of people immediately on you and Jaehyun. You forced yourself to place a smile on your face, but it was hard with how down you were feeling. You didn’t appreciate how quickly your mood went from excited to upset in the span of the short walk here. 

With a quick glance over to Jaehyun, who seemed to be doing fine, you began greeting people who wanted to come over to and say hello to their new supervisor and compliment how great the two of you looked together. You did your best to sound genuine when accepting the compliments, but admittedly needed to take a break for a moment. It was then that you saw Jennie and politely excused yourself from Jaehyun’s side. 

Once you made your way over, Jennie seemed to pick up on your foul mood. She immediately knew that you needed some alone time and dragged you through some random door onto a porch. It was cold but the chill on your skin was actually welcome. 

“What’s wrong girlie?” She asked littered with concern.

“I don’t know, truly” you sniffled, “I was literally fine when we left our room.” 

“Does this have to do with what you told us at the bar?” She tentatively approach the topic, “about being afraid Jaehyun won’t act the same when we all get back?” 

You really needed to talk it out at least somewhat, or you were going to break down, so you did your best to be truthful without divulging the entirety of the situation. 

“Yeah I guess it is.” You began, “logically I know there’s no need for this fairytale to go on once the trip is over, but I can’t help feeling like I need it too. Like I won’t be okay if we just go back to normal. And then I feel guilty for thinking Jae should have to feel obligated to give that to me.” You hoped that made sense in the context Jennie was hearing it.

“Listen, (y/n) you and Jaehyun are the most authentic couple I have ever seen. You two seem so in sync and perfectly aware of every single one of the other’s needs. It is clear that the fact that this relationship has bloomed from five years of friendship has created such a deep level of understanding before any romance ever came into play, that I think he would understand any needs you have. You shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to feel loved every day. The thing is, you already see that he loves you, because that’s how close you two have always been, but you just need to see that he wants you too.” Jennie finished with a definitive nod of her head. 

Jennie’s advice was amazing and comforting, if the situation was what she thought it was, those words would be exactly what you needed to hear; so you let her words calm you and gave her a genuine small smile and a hug. You were ready to face the night and not think about how much you hoped that Jaehyun would somehow confess his undying love for you and ask you to just be his real girlfriend instead of what you knew he was going to do. Which was awkwardly but politely point out how you two didn’t need to “date” anymore and then slowly but surely let the awkward tension between you pull apart a five year friendship. Your dread tried to come back in full swing. 

Instead of dwelling you shook your head and made you way over to the bar where they were serving champagne. You had a flute in one had and a mini quiche in the other when you found Jaehyun again. You felt so strange going back into the role when you knew you should be trying to wane yourself out of it in preparation. All the same, you put a light smile on your face and leaned forward, allowing him to place a kiss on your forehead. You ignored the pressure that began to build around your heart, constricting it. 

You ate the food and drank a couple more flutes of champagne by the time dancing began. With your muscles a little loosened, you forced Jaehyun on the dance floor with you. Standing in a circle with all of your new friends, dancing and drinking with huge smiles on your faces, you looked around. The eye contact you made with Jaehyun was like some sort of trigger for your intense deja vu. 

You remembered that first party. The night that you and Jaehyun finally began a true friendship. The last thing you remembered that night was the beautiful smile that lit up Jaehyun’s face with his dimples on display and his mouth wide open in mirth. You never would have guessed at that moment that five amazing years later you would be at a party with that same boy, surround by four completely different but equally as lovable friends, only this time you would be prematurely mourning the loss of that beautiful friendship.

You knew that this stupid scheme and your stupid feelings would never allow you to go back to being just friends. Even though you were never supposed to actually be more than friends in the first place. You knew that it had been your fault that you and Jaehyun had ventured into these dangerous waters. So many instances this week that you could have avoided that would have made it impossible for these feelings to foster and grow. 

It would start slowly. With the two of you putting in frustratingly more effort to appear normal. Then it would move on to you starting to do things without the other to avoid that awkward air. Then eventually you would stop seeing each other at all and grow apart. Letting your most meaningful friendship slip away because you had fallen in the wrong type of love. 

It had to be that moment that the song switched to a slow song. Of course. You and Jaehyun slowly came together to dance, he still held you as close as he had all week, but right now it just felt different. It felt less genuine, less willing, less natural. You tried your hardest and made sure to wrap yourself just as close to maybe force the feelings out of you, but it didn’t work. You sang along to the words of the song playing, feeling as if it had been chosen especially for you right now with the contented and intimate lyrics, but the melancholy sound of the instrumentation. 

Midnight was fast approaching as you were spiraling further and further down into this feeling of melancholy, so you pushed yourself to really attempt to look joyous like you should be by all circumstances. Every time Jaehyun’s hand wrapped around your waist, or his fingertips brushed your shoulder, you were only reminded of how this was all ending. With a half hour left of this year, you decided to just have fun and enjoy it. So you danced and drank and ate and made yourself appreciate all of the people you had met that enriched your life. 

The countdown began. You were standing there in Jaehyun’s arms

10

He reached to his side to grab two flutes of champagne for the toast, handing one to you

9

You accepted graciously and forced yourself to make eye contact without crying

8

Jaehyun smiled at you and let out a brief chuckle, clearly having a good time tonight 

7

You looked away to collect yourself one last time before this whole ordeal was officially over

6 

One deep breath

5

Another 

4 

Feeling Jaehyun tighten his grip on your waist, you turned towards him 

3

Your bodies pressed impossibly close, his hand that was not holding his glass roaming up your body to find its place on the side of your neck 

2

You reached up and wrapped your hand tightly around his wrist as if to say, please don’t leave this behind 

1

The whole convention hall responded with cheers and party poppers and sparklers, but all you could see was Jaehyun closing in on you.

He leaned down while tilting your head up to meet him, and when he pressed his lips against yours, it was as electrifying as the first time in the hot tub. You poured all of your emotion into that kiss and made a New Years wish that this could last forever. You really didn’t want to let go, surging forward to deepen the kiss when you sensed he was beginning to pull away. It worked, Jaehyun immediately looping his arm, champagne still in hand, around your waist and coaxing your lips open with his tongue. You pliantly parted your lips and allowed him to immediately take the lead. This was only the second time you had kissed like this and you sadly noted, it would probably be the last. Your body was tightly pressed against his firm chest and you were losing breath with how fervently Jaehyun was kissing you. You only stopped when Ten made it his job to spare you your decency and break you two apart.

You pulled back, panting heavily and looked into Jaehyun’s eyes, noting that something, that neither of you knew what it meant, had passed between you two. You wiped at the corner of your lips and flickered your gaze to his mouth noting with slight disappointment that your lip stain had not even left the slightest mark on his mouth, and you couldn’t help think that it was a reflection of this fake relationship. It’s going to end, and its not going to leave a mark on him at all, while you’re going to be stuck with the feeling of heartbreak. You tucked yourself into his side and raised your champagne glass to your lips, now that that had just happened, you decided to gulp down your glass in its entirety. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After your midnight kiss, you immediately retreated back behind whatever wall it was that you had put between you and him. Jaehyun noted with extreme clarity that for the whole last two days, you had been significantly more reserved with your affection and less inclined to intimacy with him. He knew it. That if he wasn’t pushing you this whole time, you wouldn’t have been that way in the first place. Your kiss was as amazing if not more emotionally packed as the first time. He knows that he had expressed as much of his feelings into that kiss as he could. But now here you were, both of you drinking again and not really acting how a couple should act on New Years Eve. 

You did seem sincere when wishing him a happy new year while you proceeded to dance more, but he could feel the fake relationship being wedged apart already and he wasn’t ready for it. He thought he at least had until tomorrow. Especially when you looked so beautiful tonight, he wanted to shower you with compliments and affection like he would have earlier in the week. But he was giving you space that, now, he knew you clearly had wanted but never insisted on. So he danced. Sometimes in a group with your good friends that you both gained from this trip, and sometimes with you wrapped in his arms. Playing the part of his girlfriend seamlessly from the outside, but with a tangible barrier between you from Jaehyun’s point of view. 

He decided to deliver the final blow to his own hope while you were dancing with him to another slow song as the night was winding down. “So this is it. When tomorrow comes, we don’t have to pretend anymore. It’s seemed like forever ago that we started this, huh?” He said, trying his hardest to say it lightheartedly. 

He noted with uncertainty the flicker in your eye. He didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, was it relief? 

“Yeah, it’s all over. Now we can just go back to normal.” You answered him, sounding convincingly content with how this was coming to an end. 

Jaehyun looked at you, trying to see any hint of hesitation in your face, but you were perfectly poised in a look of exhaustion. And he figured that exhaustion stemmed from putting on this front for so long. He accepted the sentiment with only minor difficulty, as he said he would if you truly didn’t reciprocate his feelings, and tried to rewire his brain once again to turn you back into just his best friend in his eyes. 

The Dj played the final call song and you just looked at Jaehyun and nodded your head to the side, indicating you were ready to go. He nodded and followed you as you gathered your bag, said goodbye to your friends, and left the function hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND ANOTHER!!! I wanted to make up for being the worst and never updating lmao.........
> 
> SO EMO FOR NO REASON! leave comments!!!


	14. The One With The Secret Santa

Your woke up the next morning ready to just get home already. What you had feared would happen happened last night and now you really didn’t feel like being on a romantic vacation with Jaehyun anymore. You had been so torn by how nonchalantly he brought up the idea of calling it quits, that you truly just felt exhaustion wash over you. All of the worrying you had done, all of the hoping, and the denying. It was all finally absolved from your conscious. You didn’t need to think about it anymore. You knew that Jaehyun didn’t want to continue this charade. You didn’t even need to wait until you got home to make a judgement call because he didn’t wait for his actions to speak for themselves, he outright stated it. Maybe thats what you resented. You probably in some way hoped that he would let it drag out without a definitive end because then you could have an excuse to hold out hope for a little longer. 

You woke up before Jaehyun, your face was clear thanks to your cleansing routine last night, but your hair felt disgusting. You didn’t get a chance to shower when you got back being far too tired, physically and emotionally, to force yourself to wash the product out of your hair before you went to bed. You quickly hopped in the shower and wasted no time in your routine. You were in and out in ten minutes. When you got out, you woke Jaehyun up with a gentle call of him name as you were going about your business. He somehow woke up, even though you knew he was a heavy sleeper. Clearly he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep and you briefly wondered what was worrying him. He didn’t take long either, he never did. You were both dressed and packed before brunch even began. It was New Years Day so plenty of people were sleeping in and spending their final day of holiday relaxing, but not you two.

Your breakfast was eaten and you were checked out by the time it reached 10:30. The pair of you looked like the dead walking and quickly bid farewell to whoever was awake at the time of your departure.

The atmosphere in the car was not awkward per say, but you could feel that both of your had something on your minds that was probably not going to be addressed. This was what you had wanted to avoid when you thought about ending this scheme. This unfortunate rift that had already taken home in your friendship. 

“I hate to ditch you again but I need to sleep off this champagne headache.” You said, trying your absolute hardest to sound normal and not like you were avoiding spending any time alone and awake together. You felt bad for how obvious it felt but forced yourself to fall asleep regardless.

“It’s no problem, I’ll wake you up when we get there,” Jaehyun responded. You couldn’t stop yourself from letting a frown slip onto your face. He would normally find it amusing and make some sort of retort about you leaving him to bare the lonesome roads alone or something. You felt unsettled by his kind response. Not that he wasn’t usually kind, but you couldn’t help but think it was because he knew. He definitely knew how you felt and was trying to be extra nice to you so you didn’t get as upset. Oh god you didn’t think you were so obvious last night. How could you be so dumb as to let him know how you felt when you were almost in the clear. If you had held out for a few more hours you would’ve been home free. Safe.

You finally fell into a fitful sleep with these thoughts running through your head, but slept all the same. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What you assumed was a couple hours later, you were woken up by Jaehyun’s door slamming shut. You were parked in your apartment’s garage and he was already unloading the bags from the trunk. 

When you both gathered your things and walked up to your apartment together, you were immediately washed over with the feeling of love and comfort. All of your friends were there, waiting specifically for you two and they had warm drinks and snacks prepared. It was actually all you could do to not cry from the outpouring of emotion you felt. 

The six of you gathered, you snuggled up between Hyuck and Joy on the love seat, and Jaehyun Johnny and Lucas sitting on the other couch, their legs tangled all together. It was time to exchanged secret Santa gifts. The names were drawn out of a hat and the present labeled that name was handed out. The person whose present it was would open it and then try to guess who had bought it for them. 

Your name was pulled first, and your present was wrapped crudely. You assumed it was either Lucas or Johnny, but waited until you opened it. The item inside the box was absolutely gorgeous. It was a personalized and specially made picture frame. The frame consisted of a collage of important memories of the six of you, not just photos, but scans of knick knacks and mementos that eternalized your best memories with these five people. You immediately teared up and just said thank you a million times before attempting to make a guess. You looked around the room, seeing Lucas smiling and crying himself, and knew that it was him who had done it. You immediately got up and hugged him, ignoring the mockery from your other friends and just thanking him again before sitting back down. 

Next went Joy, who had received a custom ordered watch from Italy. Joy was always obsessed with Milan fashion week and things of that nature, so she was needless to say ecstatic when she opened it, and knew immediately knew it was Hyuck, giving him the biggest hug. Hyuck’s name was pulled next and you felt a little nervous after seeing the caliber of the other gifts, but your fears washed away when his face lit up and he exclaimed how much he loved the earrings.

More accurately, he said “These are going to make me look so intimidating I can’t wait,” and you all laughed while wholeheartedly agreeing. He guessed you second and you were okay with that, hugging him just as hard. 

Once Lucas went, you knew in seconds who the gift was from. It was an entire outfit. An outfit that Lucas would never buy for himself, but would undoubtedly look incredible on him. Everyone looked at Joy and she just shrugged, stating that she’s never gotten him and shes wanted to dress him up for years. He laughed and admitted that he actually liked the outfit she chose out. 

It then became pretty obvious who the last two presents were from. Jaehyun and Johnny thought it was the funniest thing that they had both pulled each other’s names, promising to open them together. The real kicker was that they got each other basically the same thing. A nice pair of shoes for work and a shaving kit. Of course, the standard for a nice pair of shoes was a little different for Johnny’s job and Jaehyun’s.

Jaehyun said, “wow these’ll be great for my first day in my new position...”

.....There was a long beat of silence before your friends understood what that meant.

“Wait what does that mean?” “Are you getting promoted?” “Did you quit!?” Everyone looked to Joy. She merely shrugged and said, “you never know.” Before the attention was back on Jaehyun. 

He practically beamed with pride and told the whole story about how Nancy announced her retirement and his promotion in one grand gesture at the holiday party. Everyone was so excited for him and showing so much support.

“So does no Nancy mean no more of this fake dating?” Donghyuck inquired once the room had calmed down.

Jaehyun trained his eyes on the floor, conveniently looking at his new shoes the moment the hot seat was turned on, deferring to you. “Uuum.. yeah, the schemes over now. No need with Nancy not there to harass him anymore, right?” You pointed out, trying to add more justification so as not to show how upset you were. 

Everyone nodded in agreement, buying your act, but Joy’s eyes held a look that promised you this conversation would not be over. As the night went on and you all got more and more tired now that the adrenaline of reuniting was gone, you bid your friends goodnight, and went to bed super early. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day you stayed home, taking an extra day off before having to adjust back to work life. Unfortunately, you were not able to just relax alone all day because Joy had the day off as well. 

She bursted into your room at 9:30 on the dot, conveniently waiting until Jaehyun was sure to be gone for work and not coming back. “So what the hell was that about?” She began, unprompted.

You really did not want to talk about this, but you knew it had to happen eventually, “What was what, Joy? You heard everything.” You sighed, exasperated.

“Yeah, I heard it all right, from YOU.” She pointed at you, almost accusingly. “Why are you being so distant, it’s gonna give him the wrong idea.” 

You figured it was better to just bite the bullet right now and tell her the whole story, “I’m the one that said it, yes but that’s because he already ended it before we even left yesterday. It’s clear that he didn’t want to drag it on any longer once we were home.”

“Well....how did he say it? Are you sure that’s what he meant?” Joy questioned you, she looked suspicious in a way. Like you would somehow misinterpret Jaehyun basically telling you that it’s been going on forever and you could finally stop pretending.

“Yes I’m sure. He was very clear...” you didn’t want to elaborate, that would bring back the painful memories, “listen I know I seem torn up about it right now but I promise I’ll be fine. Me and Jae will be fine, I just need today to recoup before I can pretend it never happened” you told her honestly. You were very committed to maintaining your friendship, determined to not let your feelings ruin the best friendship you’ve ever had.

From then on, you went about your usual daily routine, preparing to go to work the next day. You and Joy went to meet Jaehyun for lunch, like you always did. It was nice to see how easily you could slip back in to the previous dynamic. There were of course certain moments when you wanted to reach across the table and hold his hand, or hold the brief eye contact longer than you did, but over all it wasn’t anything new, therefore, it wasn’t difficult to simply be his best friend again. You went home with Joy afterwards feeling more optimistic, like maybe you could do this. Maybe everything wasn’t ruined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A WICKED SHORT CHAPTER!!!!! BUT its because the next chapter is longer and I didnt know when else I could split it up!!!! ENJOY FRIENDSHIP!!! leave comments!!! Or kudos!!


	15. The One Where Your Friends are Dicks

The remaining half of the week went by quicker than expected. You assumed it would be near torturous after having spent the entire previous week doing nothing. But still, you kept busy and continued on with your life. Your situation with a certain best friend of yours seemed less and less of an issue as the days passed. He acted normal so you responded normally. There was no point in dragging out your problems unecessarily. The week was coming to a close, finally. Even though you only worked three days of the week, it felt like two full weeks with how much work you had. You left on Friday evening ready to go home and spend some relaxing time with your friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jaehyun finally yawned and shut down his desk computer at about 7:30 that Friday night. His promotion was everything he wanted, truly. But, he couldn’t get used to how much extra work he seemed to have. It seemed to only be this busy because it was his first week on the job, so hopefully the never ending stream of work would slow down to a light flowing of work, hopefully a trickle sometimes. Either way, he was done now and free for the weekend. He remembered happily that all six of you were gathering in your apartment tonight to spend some much needed time together. You weren’t even going out because you all felt like you missed out when you weren’t together for the vacation, so you were staying in tonight. 

Thinking of the vacation naturally got him thinking about you...again. He’d been thinking about it since you got back on Monday. When Hyuck asked about the fake dating and how you so easily announced that it was over with, not even sparing him a glance. The thought made him upset, he was hoping to try and spark something real once you got home. He pulled back from you at the resort to see how you interacted with him when not prompted by him, but it had only proven his fears to be correct. His fears that you in fact did not feel the same way and wanted nothing to do with him in that regard once the New Year began. So, he’s been trying to act accordingly. 

The transition back hasn’t been as hard as he thought it would be. Like he always said to himself, your friendship is way more than enough for him, so when you immediately went back to acting normal again he felt like maybe he could endure it. And eventually, get over it. With all his efforts, it had been going fairly well so far. You weren’t distant like he thought you might be, and you weren’t completely avoiding contact or affection as friends like he was positive you were going to. So he was content. 

He finally got home and when he walked into the apartment he was warmly greeted by all five of you sitting around the coffee table. There were already a good amount of empty cans and bottles, indicating that the night was going to be a tipsy one. But he was more than okay with that. He missed hanging out with his best friends like this.

You all drank and ate take out food and talked while letting netflix run in the background and it was turning into a really good night. Jaehyun was feeling a buzz from his drinks and he could tell everyone else was feeling it too. It wasn’t long until you were playing drinking games like you used to in college every weekend. You played card games like ‘Kings’ and ‘Fuck You Pyramid,’ (that one ending in full blown rivalries being declared), and then moved on to dice games and hand games and just really anything you could think of that could be turned into a drinking game. The one common factor.....booze. And a lot of it. 

The night was getting deeper and deeper, Jaehyun could see everyone winding down to their mellow, end of the night drunken states. The TV shows were traded in for chill party music, and the lights were low. This was what he liked about when you all drank together. You all followed a similar drunk path, so no one was ever out of sync with the others. When you all wanted to chill at the end of the night, you ALL wanted to chill. It made the whole experience a lot better because then you all had a chance to sober up a little before going to bed so your hangovers weren’t as bad.

Jaehyun looked around, thinking how much he loved his frie- “how about we play truth or dare?” Lucas suggested. Never mind, Jaehyun thought. He didn’t love his friends anymore. The last time he played truth or dare with you it ended with a huge public make out session between him and you. He was nervous that happening again, mostly because he knows he was just drunk enough to agree and then all the work he had done this week to press down his feelings would have been for nothing. 

He had to force himself to calm his thoughts as everyone else, including you who seemed to not even think back to your steamy dare on the roof of the ski resort, agreed to play. His friends don’t think he’s dating you. They won’t want to see you two make out like that. That would just be weird for them, right? He had nothing to worry about so he nodded his head, agreeing and you all began playing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were internally freaking out. Really? Truth or dare, Lucas? Why now after all this time would he suggest this game now? You didn’t want to seem strange or call attention to yourself so you just agreed right away so that if Jaehyun cared to even look, he wouldn’t think you were still hung up over your kiss the week before. Who were you kidding? He probably didn’t even remember that. It probably didn’t even cross his mind because you’re his best friend and his best friend only and agonizing over a kiss during truth or dare that happened over a week ago would be weird from a best friend. So Pull. Yourself. Together. (y/n)!! You thought to yourself. 

The game began and like usual it was full of stupid dares because no one wanted to leave the apartment to do a really good one. Lucas had to take a bite of a bar of soap. Jaehyun had to apply a full face of makeup to Donghyuck blindfolded. The most interesting one, courtesy of you, was Joy being dared to call Irene right then and ask her on a date. That one went over nicely, Joy was completely flustered and nervous before even seeing Irene’s picture, but after...whew it was a miracle she didn’t pass out right then and there with how red her face was. She couldn’t even be mad at you because, “Irene is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” according to her.

Unfortunately, without meaning to you had upped the ante with your bold dare. And even more unfortunately, you were up next. “Okay (y/n), Truth or Dare?” Donghyuck asked you. 

Boldly (stupidly), you immediately answered, “Dare,” with confidence that would not be there if you knew what he was about to say.

“......I dare....you and Jaehyun to make out for...let’s say fifteen seconds....” he said, barely containing his laughter enough to finish his sentence.

You visibly choked and had to start coughing as you asked him for clarification.

“Yeah, c’mon I wanna see what we missed out on this whole week...after all you wouldn’t let us spy on you.” He explained with a pout of his lips. You couldn’t believe this. Of course. Two times you had played truth or dare since you graduated college and both times you were dared to kiss your best friend. Why was it always you? Why couldn’t it be Jaehyun’s dare? You would at least feel less weird that way. 

You looked around for support from anyone, duly noting how Jaehyun was just staring at Hyuck, wide eyed and open mouthed. Your last line of support, Joy. You looked to her, expecting to see shock, or even pity. All you saw was amusement. You couldn’t stand your friends sometimes. This was the worst possible timing for this to happen.

“But-“ your tried to oppose. 

“NO buts!” Hyuck cut you off. “You know what happens if you refuse a dare...” he said evilly. 

Whenever you six played in college, you always thought it was a little to easy to cop out of fulfilling a dare. So you came up with your own rules. The first rule was, there was no trading truth for dare or vice versa. And the second rule, If you refuse to answer the question truthfully or perform your dare, the rest of them were allowed to craft an email to be sent to an authority figure of their choosing, and it could say whatever they wanted. 

You knew that in college this usually meant that they were going to send an email to a professor with some ridiculous and embarrassing, and sometimes hard to back up reason why you would be missing class, or something of the sort. But now that your only real authority figure was your boss you really couldn’t afford to give them free reign in your email and risk getting fired. They were that brutal with the things they came up with, having no pity.

You hung your head in defeat, “I know, i know...you guys are evil.” you looked up to Jaehyun as everyone else laughed, who still hadn’t fully looked your way. “Jae?........Can I?”

It felt very strange to be asking him of this. At the ski resort, your intimate moment was seen differently than it was about to be received here. These were your best friends. They have known you and Jaehyun for as long as you’ve known each other. You were terrified they would see what you were trying to hide. That they would see your very real, very burning desire behind this kiss.

Jaehyun looked at you finally, and nodded his head. You had to switch seats with Johnny to be next to Jaehyun on the couch. This felt so uncomfortable. The room was anything but silent. There was music playing, your friends making comments, laughter. But to you, it fell completely silent. You had tunnel vision on Jaehyun and couldn’t register anything else.

It began so much like the first time. With you bringing your hands up to place them on both sides of his face, tilting his head towards yours before starting to lean into him. Your eyes closed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He literally couldn’t believe this. You had willingly come over to him and agreed to another dare that constituted making out with him. What was with these people? Did he only attract friends that enjoyed seeing him suffer?

He was currently watching you leaning into him and closing your eyes and he realized he hadn’t moved at all. Then his hand instinctively moved up to hold the back of your head, and his head tilted to slot your lips together in a way that felt all to familiar. His eyes closed in contentment at the feeling of your lips on his. You both fell back into a rhythm so quickly that it was like you had never stopped kissing at all. Your mouth opened to him before his tongue even asked for permission and the urgency in your movements made something in his stomach stir. He wrapped his other arm around your waist, pulling you in closer, and sighed in pleasure as he felt your hand reach back to grab at his hair, a habit he had noticed throughout the week. His hand that was on the back of your head moved to the side and slid down to rest on the side of your neck while he stroked your jaw with his thumb, your grip in his hair tightening when he did that. The kiss felt like it lasted an eternity while also not nearly lasting long enough as you were pulled from him by the cajoling and cheering from your four other friends. 

He did his best to seem unaffected beyond reason and tried to joke along with everyone else saying how steamy it was and talking about your chemistry, how they “realize now how people actually fell for it.” It took him almost the whole subsequent round of truths and dares to finally calm down. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You pulled away from Jaehyun when you heard Joy practically screech. You looked at him quickly, seeing how affected he looked but also noticing how quickly he masked it. And you tried to do the same. You didn’t want your friends to know that a kiss like that from Jaehyun was all you’ve wanted since the last kiss you shared on New Years Eve. You joined in on some of the joking, laughing along and looking offended when you got, “Didn’t think you had it in you to act that well..” from Hyuck, who looked extremely pleased with the result of his dare.

The next round went by in a blur. Joy having to say who she had fantasized about sexually out of the six of them, Lucas having to do the cinnamon challenge and naturally failing, and Johnny having to yell ‘penis’ as loud as he could out the window...(a very mature dare by none other than Joy). You couldn’t shake the feeling of his lips on yours. It had felt so right. Like your body had been yearning for him since the trip ended and you stopped feeling his touch so often. 

You stuck out the game for a little while longer so you didn’t look suspicious, but eventually called it a night around 12:30. You made sure to drink an entire glass of water before you got ready for bed to try and preemptively cure the hangover coming tomorrow. You stopped feeling drunk the second Jaehyun kissed you back, but you figured safe is better than sorry. You finally flopped heavily onto your bed, your friends all already passed out asleep in their respective sleep over spots in your apartment, while you were lying awake, a million thoughts running through your head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jaehyun lied in his bed wide awake. He thought that he had been getting over you this whole week. He felt he was doing a good job. That is...until tonight. Every time his eyelids shut he kept envisioning your eyes fluttering closed as you leaned in to kiss him. It was impossible to fall asleep this way. What was he supposed to do? Tomorrow would be like starting all over again only this time he didn’t have a clean break to work off of. He was more confused than ever, but one thing suddenly became very clear. He needed to at least tell you. You deserved to know. You deserved to at least have a reason as to why he would probably be acting so strange around you. He didn’t want you to think you had done something wrong, so he decided he would tell you. He would tell you tonight. There was no more second guessing and stalling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK!!! We’re almost done!!!!! Only a couple chapters left!! PLease tell me what y’all think!!! This is my first story and I would love some feedback!!! 
> 
> ALSO
> 
> I was thinking of writing a Joy/(y/n) gay story :-) so let me know if thats something you’re interested in!!! I’ve already outlined a couple chapters but idk where I want it to go so if you like the idea give me any suggestions!!! Maybe some wlw fics you wanna see but can’t find anywhere?!!! (Bc tbh thats why im writing one in the first place lmayo)


	16. The One™️

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fic is from Wrapped by Gloria Estefan, and you can kind of see parts of where I got the inspiration if you listen to the lyrics of that song!!! It’s actually supposed to be the song (y/n) and Jaehyun are dancing to in Chapter 13 ;) So check that song out if your don’t know it its really beautiful!

You were laying in your bed, still awake almost an hour later when there came a knock on your door. You got up confused, really hoping it wasn’t Joy coming to rub your feelings in your face after that kiss. What you opened the door to was infinitely worse, however. You opened the door to reveal Jaehyun standing there, looking unsure but also very determined. he was wearing shorts and a loose sweatshirt, looking so cozy and adorable you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling. He seemed to relax slightly after that and made a vague hand motion to ask for permission to come in, not wanting to wake Johnny and Donghyuck, asleep on the pullout couch.

You nodded and stepped aside allowing him enough room to enter. Once you closed the door he took a seat on the edge of your bed, and you sat beside him. You turned towards him, with one leg over the edge of your mattress and one folded up to the side so your body could fully face his. He seemed to be deep in thought, staring at his interlocked hands and biting his lip. 

“Jaehyun,” you gently began, “is everything okay?” you asked.

“no...I mean yes? kind of. I have something I need to say to you and I’m not sure how you’ll take it but you need to know.” He began, making you a little nervous.

What was he about to say to you? Did you go too far with the dare? Was he about to explicitly shut you down thinking that the heartbreak of a week ago wasn’t enough? Because it was. It was too much and your heart hurt so badly. The only problem was that your heart’s first instinct was to have Jaehyun be the one to heal it.

“I don’t think this will be something you want to hear...but since we got back from the trip, we’ve gone back to being the perfect best friends again. And I love being your best friend. I would do anything to be able to keep you as my friend for the rest of my life because that’s enough...it really is. If that’s what you want from me I can give it to you, I promise.” This admission was starting to sound exactly like what you had thought it would be. He was about to tell you that he couldn’t do it anymore. That if you wanted what he wasn’t prepared to give you, then he couldn’t stay your best friend any longer. You were terrified.

So terrified in fact, that you took matters into your own hands, “Look,” you said to cut him off, “I really appreciate this Jaehyun. I....I know how much our friendship means to you, because it means just as much to me... and I’m sorry that I’ve put you in a position...where you have to lose your best friend.” You said. He looked destroyed when you finished your sentence. “I can’t be just your friend anymore,” you started to cry, “tonight has shown me that. I can’t go back to us the way we were before. I either need more or I need nothing. I wish it could be some other way, but I understand if you want to cut me out. It’ll be easier for both of us that way...” you were rambling at this point, trying to give as many explanations and excuses as you could to make this a little easier on Jaehyun.

“......Will you let me finish now?” He said, he didn’t sound as destroyed as you were expecting. He was letting this silence drag on for so long you were fidgeting in your place. Whatever it was he was about to say you needed him to say it now.

He tilted your head up by the chin and grabbed the sides of your face, wiping your tears with his thumbs. “I guess what I was trying to get at was.. that..” he made a face as if he’d remembered something, or more like just realized something and kind of huffed out a small laugh continuing, “I’ve known for years how much you mean to me, and how much I love you,” he began

You remembered his words from the car ride to the ski lodge and your heart rate sky rocketed. Your eyes snapped up and met his. His eyes were filled with so much emotion you found it impossible to stop staring now that you had started.

“But it wasn’t until that trip that I finally realized that I can’t possibly be with anyone who isn’t you. I only want to be with you. If you’ll have me, that is...” he finished with a nervous but gentle smile, only slightly amused by the complete shock on your face.

You were so overwhelmed with emotion at that moment. You had so many things you wanted to say to him, so many things that still didn’t make sense to you. It took an embarrassing amount of time for you to fully process what he had meant, but he clearly could read your expressions because he didn’t look the least bit thrown off by your long silence. You had so many things you needed to say to him in that moment. You wanted to tell him that no one has ever known you better than him. That he is the person you trust most in the world. You wanted to make sure he knew how genuine, thoughtful, and inspiring he was. You wanted him to know that you couldn’t move on to be with someone else either. You wanted him. You wanted him in every way there is to want a person, and he needed to know that.

There were all these thoughts, but all you could get yourself to do was surge forward and kiss him with as much passion and desire as you felt it your heart. Or, as much as you could possibly convey, at least. There was really no way to show him how full your heart truly felt. You pulled back from the kiss just enough to release a breathy laugh and a smile. You felt so dumb for how blind you had been. You couldn’t believe it. You caused yourself so much grief over this.

“I love you, Jaehyun.” you said. And you meant it. You really meant it. Sure, you had said it so many times before, but never holding this much weight. Never with this connotation, and by god did you mean it.

“I love you,” he said. He sounded so sincere and so relieved. You both just smiled impossibly large and went back in for another searing kiss. It was a beautiful feeling. Kissing him like this, knowing that everything was finally out in the open. Jaehyun knew everything you felt about him and he still was kissing you like this.....he felt the same. Your lips moved together perfectly, the slotting of your mouths so natural that you truly couldn’t imagine ever having this chemistry with another person. It was full of so much love and contentment, you could stay like this forever.

It didn’t last forever, however. The mood of the room quickly becoming tense and hot. When you pulled back slightly with the skin of Jaehyun’s bottom lip between your teeth, you seemed to awaken something within him. Something that has been repressed in you as well since the first time the two of you kissed like this. 

Slowly, Jaehyun broke away from your mouth to trail his hot lips down the side of your neck. He made sure to work on the skin of your neck just below your ear, feeling you shiver from pleasure. His ministrations caused you to moan quietly and you quickly tried to cover your mouth, embarrassed by the sounds you were already making.

“No, darling, let them out. It’s just us this time. I wanna hear you” he said quietly as he grabbed onto your wrist. The vibrations of his words made your neck break out in goosebumps.

You could only nod your head, not ready for him to already be sweet talking you like that. It was your ultimate weakness. You wanted him so bad, you were so ready for this your body was practically vibrating. Your hands refusing to stay put on one part of his body. 

His however, seemed to find their place. One hand he had firmly grasped onto your thigh, Jaehyun loving the feeling of having a handful of you to knead at and use to guide your body exactly where he wanted. The other arm wrapped around the small of your back, and you felt him use this leverage to begin leaning you back into your mattress. You quickly broke apart from him for only a moment to adjust yourself and just as quickly reached for the collar of his sweatshirt to pull him back in for another kiss, opening your legs for him to slot his hips between.

He kissed down your neck once more, this time with much more fervor. He was sucking and biting and licking, leaving you in a heaping mess. Everything he did served to make you moan or gasp. He was loving the effect he had on you, humming in approval at each sound that left your lips.

Eventually you got antsy and you needed his skin on you, now. You impatiently tugged at his sweatshirt, not even waiting for him to get the message, just pulling first. He finally lifted his arms to reveal his bare torso underneath. You thanked whatever deity was out there that you wouldn’t have to strip another layer off of him. His body was so strong and shapely, riddled with lean muscles. Each ridge accentuated in the moonlight filtering through your window. You could’t help yourself, running your hands all over his torso, pausing where you heard a hitch in his breath. You ran your fingers back over his nipples lightly, loving the way that his head lolled backwards and a genuine moan left his lips.

That was what you had needed to hear again since you got massages together at the resort. He sounded so erotic and pleasured in that moment. So you leaned forward and immediately wrapped your lips around his left nipple, running your tongue over the bud. The effect was enormous. He planted his hand into the hair on the back of hour head, holding you in place. You reached with your other hand, toying with the other nipple, causing his noises to resume in full force. When it became too much, he pulled lightly, removing you from his obvious weak spot and leaned down from his position on his knees to kiss you again. While your lips were attached he reached down to the hem of your T-shirt and began lifting it. 

Once you lifted your arms for him, he pulled the shirt completely off and threw it to the side, it disappearing in your bedroom somewhere. You both paused at this moment, savoring it. Just staring at each other in the moonlight. Being so exposed in front of Jaehyun should have made you squirm. But you only felt safe. You looked at him and saw his eyes sparkling while he was smiling right at you and you’d never felt more sure about something being right. It was then, in this strange moment of clarity and serenity that you laid back, reaching down to remove the underwear you were sleeping in, and saw Jaehyun move to take off his shorts. Once you both stripped down completely, never breaking eye contact, you took the opportunity and allowed yourself to rake your eyes over his naked body in all it’s glory. He was gorgeous. Perfect. You felt so lucky and completely awestruck that he was all yours now. 

He felt the same, he restrained himself until he saw you look down at his own body. Only then did he take in your beauty as well. He was admiring you, not as a piece of art, but as a force of nature. He felt the same reverence and praise that one feels for a natural wonder of the world. Not as something that is to be seen and judged according to our standards of beauty, but as something that is beautiful without the need for approval, simply by existing. He was still completely unbelieving that you reciprocated his feelings. This was not the outcome he had imagined in his head when he decided to come in here tonight.

Nevertheless, you could only stare for so long without growing impatient. It was at this moment that you reached out for Jaehyun’s wrist, pulling him down on top of you, loving the way his body weight made you feel secure and protected. The two of you engaged in another kiss, simply taking in the feeling of bare skin on skin. It was electrifying. Your hands would not be restrained from running all over Jaehyun’s back down to his sides, and eventually onto his thighs, just loving the feeling of having his body under your touch,

While supporting his weight on one elbow, he let the other hand travel across your body, running up your arm before moving to your waist and lightly skimming over your chest, brushing your nipples like you had done to him. The gasp that drew from you indicated that was something you had in common. His hand grabbed at your thigh, kneading the skin there. It grounded him when he had to find some way to comprehend that he was actually holding you. That your body was indeed under him right now and it was your thigh in his grasp. 

You felt you had been very patient, but you couldn’t deny how soaked you were from just kissing him. 

Jaehyun’s hand slowly moved to your inner thigh, brushing the skin there light enough to tickle, and then slowly moved up. Your hips squirmed, wanting to feel his fingers where you most needed it. He stopped your whine before it could even begin with a hard kiss to your lips. At the same moment he inserted his middle finger into your heat, causing you to break from his mouth to moan loudly. 

This seemed to please Jaehyun, considering his appreciative hum and the way he attached his lips to your chest, flicking your nipple with his tongue. After working you open for a while he pulled out to re-enter with two fingers this time. He pumped his fingers in and out slowly, while trying to stretch them open at the same time. You were a moaning mess, saying his name like a mantra, and pulling on his hair to bring his face to yours. You were too lost in the pleasure he was giving you to even kiss him properly, but you wanted to have his face close you yours. 

You needed him to know how good he was making you feel, “oooh... Jae...” You sighed airily when he finally inserted three fingers. The stretch felt so good, you were starting to get impatient and just wanted him to fuck into you already. 

“Yeah, tell me” he panted, “what do you want”

“I want,” you stuttered, “I need you, I need you inside of me”

He groaned as he went in for a kiss and when he broke from it he removed his fingers from you and brought them to his lips, never breaking eye contact. He was tasting you on his fingers in the most erotic display you had ever witnessed, causing your entrance to clench around nothing and remind you of your pressing needs.

“Jae..oh my god,” you moaned out, “condom, quick..side dresser.” You instructed him as quick as you could. He reacted lighting fast, pulling a condom and a small bottle of lube out, though you really didn’t think you needed any you were that wet. 

He rolled condom onto his erect cock as quickly as he could manage and instead of using the lube, went back in, gathering some of your own wetness to lubircate himself. Your mind was reeling and his ministrations were starting to make you light headed. He was so much more erotic and sexy than you expected him to be in bed, but not nearly enough of what you needed at this moment.

That was the breaking point for you. You sat up quickly, changing positions with Jaehyun before he could even blink. He was laying on his back, blinking confusedly, but seeming greatly affected by your dominant side. He gladly laid back and watched as you sensually straddled his hips. Making eye contact as you lined him up to your hole and slowly slid yourself down until your hips were flush against his.

You both let out the most animalistic and unrestrained moans of your lives as you felt the stretch and the warmth of finally coming together as one. Once you were flush, you needed to pause and collect your breath. He was so much bigger than you imagined, the way he filled you so fully honestly overwhelming. You sat there, head tilted back and panting until he decided to sit up and hug you close to his body, slightly gyrating his hips underneath you to cause some friction. 

You only leaned further, your back arching with how incredible the slow grind of his hips from underneath felt. He felt so deep inside you, and his face buried in your neck, hot breaths fanning over you only adding to the sensations. When you finally recovered, you began to circle your hips in tandem with his own movements and create a rhythm that you both could follow.

You eventually started riding him, using your legs to lift your body up and down on his shaft, making sure to angle your hips specifically every time to feel Jaehyun hit your g spot. You were panting, Jaehyun was now leaned back on his elbows watching you, an you had a strong hold on his shoulders using them for leverage. Your moans began growing higher in pitch and occurring more frequently, almost constant at this point. 

He could tell that you were building up to an orgasm with how sloppy your movements were becoming, and he wanted desperately to fuck you through it, to hear you moan out his name. 

So he reached up, wrapping his arms completely around you, bringing your body flush against his while he laid back on the bed. He proceeded to plant his feet on the mattress and thrust up into you, making your body shake with the impact of it and causing you to let out short stuttered yells of pleasure each time he snapped his hips into yours.

The ball of pleasure was building so high in your stomach, you felt just about ready to burst until your mind whited out. One second you were being fucked into oblivion by Jaehyun, and the next your eyes were rolling back into your head and the tension that had been building finally snapped. You let out a loud moan of his name, followed by stuttered breaths and shaky moans as you laid flat on top of his body. You had felt him come as well, burying himself deep inside of you and releasing into the condom with a loud, low grunt at some point during your intense orgasm. 

You laid there for several minutes, letting Jaehyun soften inside of you, but still unwilling to move. Eventually, when his oversensitivity became too much, Jaehyun gently slid you off of him and went into your bathroom. He came back out with a warm towel cleaning off himself before working on you delicately when he saw you twitch as he brushed over your oversensitive area. 

You forced yourself to get up and go to the bathroom just for hygiene’s sake, and when you walked back into your bedroom and saw Jaehyun laying there in your bed, you felt a flush of contentment wash over the room. He really loved you back. The concept was so wild to you, but you were infinitely appreciative of his bravery to confess to you tonight, because it probably would have never happened if he hadn’t decided to come to your room first. 

You crawled into bed, feeling the need to be his little spoon tonight. You were only ever the little spoon when Jaehyun was already asleep when you came to bed, but you initiated it this time. Before he could find his way into your arms, you scooted down and placed your head on his chest and wrapped your arms around his torso.

“I just want to be held by you tonight,” you whispered to him. 

He responded by simply turning a little towards you to make it more comfortable and hugging you close to his chest, while kissing the top of your head.

You fell asleep that night wrapped in the arms of your best friend, and for the first time in a long time you were not confused by how he was making you feel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke up the next morning and found your body tangled with Jaehyun’s, his body flat and your leg hooked over his hip. Your face was pressed right up against his neck and your hands were intertwined at some point during the night.

You smiled sleepily, cherishing the way the morning found you, feeling the warmth of the sun, the warmth of his arms, and the warmth in your heart all at once. There were scattered remnants of the night before all over your bedroom making you never want to leave this moment where you felt loved, safe, and free.

Jaehyun woke up to you laying on your side facing him, lightly running your fingertips over the outline of his face. He caught your wrist and kissed the pad of each finger then finally the palm, his eyes smiling and you unable to contain the smile on your face as well. You leaned into him, catching his lips in a kiss. One so light and gentle that you could have imagined it.

Right at this perfect moment was of course when your nosy and far too involved friends decided to burst into the room.

“All right! Now that you’re up and no longer dwelling in your own stupidity! It’s time to get up, we’re going out to brunch lovebirds,” Johnny yelled, with Joy in tow. 

You couldn’t even be surprised that they knew exactly what happened last night.... you just realizing that the truth or dare game was simply another plot to get the two of you to stop only seeing what you wanted, and to look at what was actually there. 

You rolled your eyes and looked over to Jaehyun as they exited the room, finding him looking at you with a contented smile and a glimmer in his eyes. When he tried to lean into you again, distracting you from the task at hand, you pushed him away by his chest.

“No, I’m getting up and showering,” you stated firmly, standing from your bed, “If you want to kiss me again you’ll have to wait,” you were at the door to you bathroom now, “.....or you can follow me” you trailed off, sending a sly smile Jaehyun’s way. You let out a loud cackle as you saw how quickly he got out of bed to join you with a huge smile on his face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOHHH HOOO HOOOOO THIS IS IT
> 
> this was VERY awkward for me to write AND read so im sorry but I only proof read it once briefly, please let me know if you find any mistakes!!! 
> 
> LOL also please just let me know how you feel about it!! like I said this is my frist ever story so I wanna know what I can improve on espeCIALLY since I am planning on writing more stories~~
> 
> I actually really do want to write a (reader/joy) fic sO bad bc she is my ultimate gay crush so I feel like I need to do it....it wouldn’t be joy from this au tho bc shes gay for irene sorry lmao!! 
> 
> BUT I could also attempt to write short side stories about the other ships in this fic that I mention in my tags!! they all have little easter eggs in the story so if you want me to write little one offs about each of them I can!! you can even request certain situations you want me to write them in!! like (ex. joyrene’s blind date thats mentioned in chapter 15) so yteah just LMK!!!!!! 
> 
> as always thank you for reading it means so much!!! and the kudos are wonderful :’)


	17. The one when everything is perfect

“Jaehyun! Door!” You yelled from the kitchen. 

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly as you heard him stub his toe and loudly curse when he shuffled from the living room where he had been setting out the bowl of punch you had prepared for your housewarming party. 

You heard the door open and then-

“HEY!!” “Woaaahhhhhh” “What the hell this place is actually nice!”

A cacophony of noise poured into the apartment. Yup, your friends were here. And they’re of course as loud as ever. 

You and Jaehyun had only had your new apartment for a little under a month so you only just now finally found the time and were settled enough to throw a house warming party. 

“Hey guys!” You exclaimed, “come in! Put your coats in the closet there and I’ll show you around” 

It was a cluster of arms reaching out to hug each other and hands grabbing for coats or hangers and big smiles and warm greetings and you could feel the warmth of familiarity and love fill the room.

You and Jaehyun finally got an apartment together separate from Joy, which wasn’t a problem now that she and Irene wanted to move in together anyway. 

Jaehyun seemed more excited than you thought you’d ever seen him before and took the lead showing everyone around. There wasn’t much to it but it was cozy, and it was personal, and it was yours. You could see parts of you and Jaehyun in every tiny detail and you were really proud of the life you had built together. 

After giving the tour and offering the drinks and snacks you had prepared, you sat in your living room with all your friends. There was mood lighting and music playing in the background.

You walked back into the living room after getting yourself a cup of tea and took your place on the couch that Jaehyun had saved for you. As you adjusted yourself and made yourself comfortable pressed against his side, you looked around the room. At all your friends laughing and already making your new apartment feel more like a home than any decorations ever could. 

You looked at Joy and Irene, two amazing women who you had met separately but now were inseparable themselves. Irene made herself comfortable between Joy’s legs on your oversized plush leather chair and Joy was subconsciously running her fingers through Irene’s hair. They were so in love, Joy clearly subdued by Irene’s presence, while simultaneously Irene’s more playful side was brought out by Joy’s crazy antics. 

Then you looked at Johnny and Donghyuck, who were as playful and hilarious as ever and just cracking jokes on the others’ behalf. They were always a fun dynamic to watch, and you loved to see them so happy when they got to spend time together. Which was less often now that Johnnys career as a DJ and Donghyuck’s dancing career we’re starting to take more serious turns.

Lastly you looked over to Lucas who was, of course, telling some story that you didn’t quite catch with wild facial expressions and wide hand gestures. You looked over just in time to see him accidentally bump Jungwoo on the side of the head and immediately cradle him and kiss his head in apology. You had made Jaehyun introduce Jungwoo and Lucas soon after you figured all your issues out because you had a gut feeling they would compliment each other so well. And you were obviously completely right because they’d been dating ever since. 

Your friends were happy. They were bringing their warmth and joy into your home and you couldn’t be more grateful for them. 

As for you and Jaehyun, you two had gone through it all together. You supposed knowing someone for almost half your life would do that to you. But being together in a romantic way has been a brand new ride altogether. One that has taken the majority of your time the last year learning how to navigate. 

You were learning about each other in completely new ways that you never expected. Like how Jaehyun is really good at knowing exactly how to comfort you when you tell him if something’s bothering you, but not so good at realizing somethings wrong on his own. Or how he learned that when he has those sleeping fits the night before a big presentation at work that he never knew how to soothe before, now when you sing to him and run your fingers through his hair, he’s able to fall back asleep. 

It’s been a lot of fine tuning and adjusting, but for the grand majority of the time, it just feels the same. You’ve known him for almost half of your life, and you plan on knowing him for the rest of it. He’s the same man you loved already and the fact that you can also love him as his girlfriend has improved your quality of life ten fold. 

You looked around the room at all of your friends laughing and yelling about who knows what, and let your eyes finally land on Jaehyun. 

“What’s up darling?” He asked as he turned his head towards you when he felt your eyes on his face.

“Nothing,” you smiled big, “I’m just...really happy right now” 

He smiled back at you and leaned in to give you a quick but emotion filled kiss that you had to resist from pouting when he pulled away from.

You then leaned further into the crook of his arm and snuggled your way almost into his lap and tuned back in to the story that was animatedly being told by pretty much every single person there to poor Irene and Jungwoo who were trying their best to follow. 

“- NO! Lucas was a complete crackhead at freshman orientation!!! He was like SO loud and was always saying these ridiculous things before cackling-“

“HEY!!” He interrupted Donghyuk, “YOU were the one who came up to US and said we had to AND I QUOTE ‘stunt on the entire freshman class’ I mean what the FUCK did you even mean” Lucas practically yelled.

It seemed as thought everyone was trying to explain how the six of your became best friends and of course nobody appreciated being called out for their embarrassing freshman year of college antics.

“We all know that without Donghyuk you guys wouldn’t have met me and Johnny let’s show a little gratitude please” you heard Jaehyun interject from beside you.

“That’s RIGHT!! I’m the glue to this friend group here please show some respect!!!” 

Donghyuck proceeded to go on a rant explaining why he is the sole reason the six of you remained friends throughout college and all you could do was laugh and shake your head, forever indulging his dramaticism. 

Your life, though simple had never seemed so promising than it did right in that moment. You knew you’d all be alright. And you’d always have each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok!!!! Here’s the last chapter sorry that took FOREVER I just....suck??? Yeah no excuse lol so yeah all done!!!!
> 
> Let me know if you want a spin off about any of the gangs relationships or if you want to see a female reader/joy fic bc that’s what I’ve kind been working on!!! Yeah !! Thank you for reading!!! And sticking with me through 17 chapters of this mess!!!! 
> 
> Love you all!!!! XOXOXOXO


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